Mood:
sadTopic: local news
If there is no evidence of a sinister crime, could a 3 year old child walk such a long way and die of dehydration? Trying to find where the planes fly? Or even be abducted and released get lost and similarly die of heat and dehydration?
From our uni science classes we always recall the surface area volume ratio of living things. Smaller volume (as for a small child) means relatively bigger surface area to lose heat and perspire. Some UN and other web pages discuss dehydration mainly in respect of global problems of Acute diarrhoeal diseases:
The symptoms become increasingly severe with greater water loss. One's heart and respiration rates will increase to compensate for decreased plasma volume and blood pressure, while body temperature may rise because of decreased sweating. Around 5% to 6% water loss, one may become groggy or sleepy, experience headaches or nausea, and may feel tingling in one's limbs ( paresthesia). With 10% to 15% fluid loss, muscles may become spastic, skin may shrivel and wrinkle, vision may dim, urination will be greatly reduced and may become painful, and delirium may begin. Losses of greater than 15% are usually fatal. [1]http://rehydrate.org/dehydration/index.html
We actually walked from Melbourne Airport in January 2010 all the way to the first tram stop which must be about 5 km. It was hot dry flat country. We did find a tap along the way. We had bad shoes we threw away the next day.
Our purpose was to learn more about the layout of Mebourne complete with compass. We walked to and from Kingsford Smith airport in Sydney same trip partly to avoid the outrageous premium on the train ticket.
We've done similar at Avalon to train line at Lara in Victoria in 2006 or so. A bit eccentric but it's also quite interesting.
