Everyone knows about the Dyatlov Pass incident – a disaster that left a hiking group dead in mysterious circumstances – but what if I told you there’s another, arguably stranger hiking disaster that took place in Russia, much more recently?
Let’s explore the Khamar-Daban Incident.
Background
It’s August 1993 in Khamar-Daban, a mountain range in Southern Siberia, Russia. A group of seven fit, healthy and experienced hikers depart on a multi-day expedition. The group is lead by Lyudmila Korovina, a 41 year old professional outdoors woman and her six students aged between 24 and 15.
This group was one of several on the mountain, and planned to meet up with a second group, led by Lyudmila’s daughter on the 5th August.
They didn’t.
At first, no one was alarmed. After all, these things happen, especially as the weather had not been pleasant.
It wasn’t until five days later that some sign of the group emerged, in the shape of a lone girl, covered in blood.
Valentina was found by a group of kayakers and was the only survivor.
What Happened?
Valentina had quite the story to tell.
According to her, the expedition started of better than expected, and the group reached the summit of the mountain two days ahead of schedule. It wasn’t until they’d began their decent that something went swiftly awry.
Soon after breakfast, as the group began the final part of their decent, one of them began to scream.
The boy, Sacha, grabbed his face before falling to the ground, blood streaming from his eyes and ears.
Thinking quickly, Lyudmila told the remaining group to search for aid down the mountain before she too, began to scream. Quickly returning to their leader, they found her in a similar state to Sacha, bleeding and foaming from the mouth, convulsing.
The next member of the group, Tatyana, began grabbing at her throat, struggling to breath, before smashing her head against a rock and falling unconscious.
The next two group members decided to flee, before quickly succumbing to the same fate, bleeding from the face and tearing at their clothes before dropping dead.
This left only Valentina and her friend, Denis, but before long, he fell victim to strange distressing end.
Valentina fled down the hill and spent the next four days following power-lines to find her way back to civilisation, where she found the kayakers.
A formal search did not begin until August 24th, and two days later, a helicopter found the bodies.
After an investigation, the autopsy reported that the group died from hypothermia, except Lyudmila, who died of a heart attack. There were also reports of lung bruising – something that can be caused by hypothermia, apparently, and a protein deficiency, which can be caused by under-eating.
Toxic Mushrooms?
A few theories have floated around regarding these mysterious and tragic deaths.
The first, and most reasonable is the toxic mushroom theory.
Lyudmila was known to be a mushroom forager, and its thought that she, or another of the group, could have mistakenly foraged a poisonous shroom for breakfast, which lead to the group’s bizarre deaths.
Perhaps Valentina did not consume the mushroom in question, which spared her, or perhaps she did. If she did, maybe she hallucinated her comrades bleeding faces, as the autopsy reports seem not to mention any bleeding. But if that’s the case, why was she found covered in blood?
If the other’s did eat some weird shrooms which caused them to bleed all over, wouldn’t Valentina have mentioned this in her initial police reports? Even after the fact, this seems a reasonable result of putting two and two together. You think she’d have remembered eating foraged mushrooms as part of their breakfast.
But what about the autopsy? While they could have succumb to hypothermia during a bad trip, wouldn’t mushrooms have been found in the group’s stomach condense?
Chemicals or Nerve Agents?
Venturing into the conspiratorial, could the group’s symptoms been caused by chemical poisoning or a nerve agent? Remember that military testing was one of the more outlandish theories for the events in the Dyatlov Pass.
One theory relies on the hikers drinking contaminated water from nearby Lake Baikal – unlikely, since you’d expect something similar to have happened before or since to other hikers or lake users.
The other, is that the group died from exposure to chemical weapons or nerve agents, in particular.
Convulsing, foaming at the mouth, breathing difficulties that could cause lung bruising and tearing at the throat and clothes, could all be explained by this, as can Lyudmila’s heart attack. I can’t seem to find any direct evidence of excessive bleeding caused by nerve agents, but it’s not unthinkable that Valentina may have misremembered this, particularly if a tongue was bitten during a convulsion, or blood being coughed up.
A chemical cause would also explain the apparent speed of the group’s affliction, but still leaves us with questions.
Although it’s easy to suggest a post-soviet cover up, would a mountain with at least three known hiking groups as well and it’s nearby lake – seemingly populated by kayakers and other outdoorsy-type people and activities – be the scene for some type of chemical weapons testing?
Then again, perhaps heavy rain could have introduced the toxins accidentally to the atmosphere? But why was only this group affected? And how did Valentina remain unscathed for four days? If it came with the rain, wouldn’t it have been carried with the run off, down the mountain?
High-Altitude Pulmonary Edema?
High-Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE) is a dangerous and life threatening altitude sickness that usually happens above 2,500 meters (or 8200ft), but can happen at lower altitudes.
The group were at 2396 meters when they succumbed to the event, although they had summited quicker than they expected, and ascent/decent rate can be a contributing factor to HAPE.
Symptoms of HAPE include shortness of breath, coughing, weakness, chest tightness, wheezing, rapid breathing and rapid heart rate.
Still, this theory has its holes. Why did the group die almost simultaneously? While it’s possible that the hikers coughed up some blood, why did Valentina report so much of it? She was, it’s claimed, found with dried blood on her own clothes.
Conclusion
There is no “one size fits all” theory that Khamar-Daban Incident, and Valentina herself does not discuss it, and has tried to move on with her life.
We must remember that eyewitness accounts are not perfect, and Valentina was clearly traumatised by the event and the four subsequent days she was alone in the woods.
Even when she was found by the kayakers, she didn’t respond to their greetings – something that, reportedly, caused them to turn around and investigate her appearance more thoroughly, rather than continuing past her.
Still, the bodies were found in close proximity, which suggest they were all overcome at roughly the same time. The autopsy’s, clearly showed the causes of death were hypothermia (except for Lyudmila) – assuming there was no funny business.
But alas, it seems the exact manner of death for these six hikers will forever remain shrouded in mystery.
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