To find what’s happened to Michael Mosley quite anxiety provoking

[Glasto73lover]

It’s that idea of never really knowing what’s going to happen- the idea that we walk such a fine line in life. If you think too much about it, you probably wouldn’t leave the house.!

A close family member died suddenly and tragically a decade ago - literally dropped dead at home age 48 - something went pop in their head. So you genuinely don’t know when your time is up.

It’s that idea of a chain of consequence that can go so horribly wrong too- people always say ‘oh but you could get hit by a bus’ - stuff like this actually makes me really anxious. So many what ifs.

For Michael Moseley - a chain of probably inconsequential decisions may have led to his death- not having a phone on him, choosing to undertake a walk that in the U.K. is nothing but in that heat, was devastating and probably caused his death.

It makes me anxious that I won’t know if I am making those decisions - am I making sense? I think as I have got older, I have become more anxious and risk averse (thanks menopause) and as a result, you could end up not leaving the house. How do you choose a sensible approach? Not too much risk but some!

But I also want to live my life too!! I guess I find incidents like this quite difficult!

I guess always having a phone, not undertaking walks in intense heat in an unfamiliar place etc are the common sense points that will come out of this tragedy.

Aibu to find it anxiety provoking tho?!

Some have described it as crawling and others as making his way gingerly.

Some reports have questioned whether he did actually say he was feeling unwell/tired.

Honestly we don't know. It's like all the initial reports of it being the mayor who spotted him .

Yes I read in one of the papers that it took him around 30 minutes to walk, what should have been a 5 minute walk, from where he was last spotted on cctv, to where his body was found

You think someone falling of a cliff 10 mts high is the result of cardiac arrest? 🤔

@beatrix1234 from what I've read he was descending a slope and collapsed on that slope.
But yes, a SCA could absolutely make you fall from a height. The heart suddenly stops, often with no warning symptoms, and you drop to the ground.

Whilst it's possible for Dr M to have suffered a sudden cardiac arrest - under the given circumstances heatstroke is many times more likely than a rare/uncommon un-diagnosed electrical conduction problem

Haven’t read the whole thread.

OP, I think this is, ironically, the beautiful thing about us - we are so fragile. Our fragility, our mortality, is what makes life so beautiful. Use this to remind yourself to live - right now. The only guarantee is this moment. And now this one. And now this.

Are you aware of the incredible odds you had to beat just to be alive? It’s okay to be sad when someone dies in circumstances such as these, but it also pays to remember that every moment he had defied the odds. Life is made up of silly, inconsequential moments, but those are also the moments that mean the most. Don’t focus on the end - that bit is the guarantee. Focus on the marvellous opportunity you have right now.

@Efacsen you're right of course. I was just trying to point out that a number of posters who seem to be blaming him for bringing it on himself feels wrong for a number of reasons.
Not least because we don't know the cause of the poor man's demise.

Severe heatstroke can cause a blood clot, I read today - this in itself will cause a sudden collapse/cardiac arrest. The family clearly won't release the details of PM findings at this stage.

@BeetlejuiceBeetlejuiceBeetlejuice thank you for such a heart warming inspiring post

Genuine question, even when you are close to 70?

This is beautifully explained. Exactly the way I feel. Thanks for explaining it so well

The term heart attack is often used interchangeably with another term, sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). However, these conditions are not the same. In a heart attack, there is a blockage in a blood vessel that interrupts the flow of blood. Sudden cardiac arrest happens due to a malfunction with the heart’s electrical system.

Yes definitely - there's a saying 'the canary on your garden wall is more likely to be a sparrow'

Plus expect that Dr M would have had an ECG at some point during his experiments on himself for insurance purposes - that would have most likely revealed any issues with electrical conductance in his heart

I completely agree. Some people seem to be underestimating the enormous strain that heatstroke puts the body under. It’s not just being a bit hot. It has effects on every organ in your body.

It’s particularly poignant for me as this is something my late dad would have done .. gone off piste by mistake and then gone doggedly on up a steep climb rather than turn back or seek help. He died of a non accident related issue but the number of times he got lost due to his embarrassment about asking for directions or because of a miscommunication with us were numerous. He never took his mobile phone with him either.

We don’t even know how he died yet do we? Speculation is due to the heat but that does that not seem unlikely considering it was so soon after he left his group? Maybe he had a heart attack, or fell…

You can see that when mumsnetters post scathing comments to people who are concerned about heatwaves in this country, looking back to 2022. Older people, babies and those with underlying health conditions much more vulnerable to the heat.

Because in the UK most people do not understand the impact of heat, except on babies and very frail elderly people.

There was a post before he was found that really resonated with me.

Thread 3 - Michael Mosley missing after disappearing on holiday walk

buidhebeltainn · 09/06/2024 08:49
Tim Harford has a podcast series "Cautionary Tales" One of them ("Danger: Rocks Ahead") is on something called "Plan Continuation Bias" The idea is that someone makes a plan, Plan A, then something makes them tweak it slightly, then something else makes them tweak it slightly again. They think they're still following Plan A, but at some point there have been so many tweaks that Plan A is now an unplanned Plan B.

I think that's what has happened here, and why there is so much confusion. There was Plan A. Water taxi to the beach, spend the day there, water taxi back. MM either forgets his phone, or realises it needs charging so leaves it on charge. So his Plan A is slightly tweaked to a day without his phone, but that's a tiny tweak. It doesn't matter.

At the beach, after a swim, MM decides that he wants to head home, while the others stick to Plan A. If at that point he's intending to walk to Pedi, then get the bus, that's quite straightforward. So it's a second tweak, but it's a small one.

None of them quite realise that the combination of Tweak 1 (no phone) and Tweak 2 (head home alone) is cumulatively bigger than two small tweaks to the plan.

He gets to Pedi and for some reason doesn't get the bus, or decides to do some exploring before getting a later bus. Bus later, rather than bus now is a small tweak to the plan. But that's the third small tweak. He still thinks he's on Plan A. But the combination of tweak 1 (no phone) tweak 2 (head off alone) and tweak 3 (don't get the bus his wife thinks he's getting) means that he's now on unplanned Plan B, and his wife and friends have no idea.

So he ends up at the point of the last CCTV sighting. He might not even realise he's on the wrong path at this point. Or this route might be Tweak 4. He's now onto Plan B, which would require, perhaps, a map, and a bigger water supply, and proper hiking shoes. But he doesn't realise he's unequipped for Plan B, because he thinks he's still on Plan A, slightly tweaked.

"Plan Continuation Bias" It's a thing.

I think that’s what happened here except I don’t think he decided to go exploring when he missed the bus. I think he deliberately decided to walk to Ag. Marina probably to catch the boat back to Symi Town. After all it should have been a 30 minute walk and he’d just completed a 30 minute walk from the beach at St. Nicholas to Pedi without any problem. He’s in fine form when he takes the turn onto the path to Ag. Marina, obviously not anticipating any trouble. Except it’s a much much tougher walk, a lot of it uphill with no shade at all (except the umbrella), he only had a small bottle of water and the sun was getting even more intense. The walk that should have taken 30 minutes took him at least 1 hour and 30 minutes in fierce heat.

It’s a tragedy and a great loss because he was such a lovely man.

Someone upthread mentioned "Plan Continuation Bias" - known as "Must get there itiis"

When you continue on a plan because you must get there, despite warning signs etc - and at some point, you need to evaluate your decision making and your plan.

But it can be hard to stop and reevaluate when you are carrying out your plan.

The ‘Swiss Cheese Model’ helps to minimise the chance of catastrophic failure. Consider many slices of cheese all with holes in them but in different places. The idea being you have many layers of
mitigative measures or barriers, none of which are in themselves a compete cover for the failure but when overlapped they reduce the chance of failure because the holes don’t line up. When the holes line up then catastrophic failure can happen.

You are able to leave the house and not be struck down by catastrophic failure because you have many layers of cheese which prevent this from happening for the majority of the time. Michael didn’t have enough layers of cheese in his situation

The heat almost certainly played a part but the terrain cannot be underestimated. Anyone who's been on a treadmill and dabbled with the incline setting will know how much difference even a slight incline makes, then add on top of that the constant up and downing of walking over big rocks and your heart rate would be through the roof.

He left them at 1.30 and died around 4pm. That's 2.5 hours of walking in over 40 degrees heat. A lot of that walk (I think 1.5 hours) was on the mountain - very rocky terrain, a lot of it uphill in a place with no shelter at all, no trees, nothing. The rocks were burning hot - look at that poor dogs feet.
Even if he did have a heart attack I'm pretty sure it's because the heat and exertion put his body under enormous strain.

@SallyWD ah I didn’t know it was so long, thank you.