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?!

It sounds like an error of judgment. We all make them, for the most part they don’t result in our death or have any serious consequences at all. In a small number of cases, they do.

The walk from Pedi back to Symi was not actually very far by road, but MM chose to walk instead from Pedi to Agia Marina, which is 40 minutes from Pedi over a rocky hiker’s path. At Agia Marina there is a cafe and small harbour with a beach where you can either pick up another boat back to Symi (or Pedi), or you can carry on on a hiker’s trail to Chorio, the upper town of Symi.

The point is that even if the round trail is 3hrs, there were stops around it and the distance he seems to have meant to walk before getting to another stop is 40mins or so. Still not remotely advisable in the heat (all the online guides to that walk say not to do it between 11 and 4 when the sun is at its hottest). But he seems to have got lost up on the hillside and missed the track. Here’s a blog from 2012 about that exact walk:

https://barrysramblings.com/2012/09/29/symi-getting-it-wrong/

If he’d had a phone (access to maps, GPS, the ability to call someone), more water, a hat, not gone in 40 degree heat, not got lost, someone had seen him coming down the rocky slope at Agia Marina - all could have been different.

But I do agree that older men often mistakenly feel like they’re still physically invincible (more so than women do, I think, maybe because we are generally more aware of our physical vulnerabilities). My dad was exactly the same until he hit his mid-70s and his health really suddenly started to go. But at 67 he still thought he could do anything, and he was far, far less fit than MM was!)

Yes, I think he'd have made it if he hadn't got lost. Once he was lost, the only thing to do would have been to climb to the highest point to try and see where to go. So he did a massive climb in 40 degree heat which he had not been planning to do.

The poor man. He was probably a bit frightened, he didn't have his phone, and was feeling increasingly unwell it seems.

I think it was a series of things, none of which were his 'fault', but which together, led to his death. What an awful thing to happen.

I am surprised how upset I have been over his death purely because I often go coastal walking on my own both in UK and when away on holiday as my husband is happy to slob around on a lilo but I prefer to go off exploring and walking. However I would never have gone off in that heat without my phone as I am paranoid about getting lost so I have OS maps and GPS tracker on my phone along with find my phone so others can find me. I also would not scrabble around on cliffs and would have retraced my steps to find a good path.

I don't know what his thought processes were when he left his wife on that beach or indeed when he got to Pedhi early afternoon but the temperature alone should have made him think twice. If he was already dehydrated though maybe that impairs thought processes.

I will certainly remember him next time I wander off walking alone but am so desperately sad for the outcome for him and his family. One bad decision and it led to tragedy.

This is very enlightening, thank you, as I have found it a bit confusing and conflicting to understand the different routes. I heard that the boat taxi back from St Nicholas Beach to Symi was not running until 4pm which is why he left. So would there have been an earlier boat from agia marina? What you are saying corresponds with the mayor's statements - he chose a more treacherous route and did not stop to refresh/take water at Pedi.

I think it’s a really stark reminder that we are all mortal.

I would imagine that being a doctor and having been able to reverse some of his health issues through diet and the fasting stuff made him feel quite invincible. So many healthy people think like this. They think because they exercise, eat well and whatever else that they’re giving themselves some protective bubble that makes them less susceptible to things than others. It’s very tiresome.

I have chronic and severe autoimmune issues. I’ve learnt the hard way that sometimes our bodies really are just our worst enemies whatever we do to them or put in them.

Also, I read somewhere that MM and his wife had been to Symi before some years ago. I suspect that, a bit like that blog above, it might well have been a walk he had done before, perhaps in less intense heat, perhaps in the opposite direction - hence setting off at a brisk pace and assuming it would be doable even in the heat, if he knew it was 40 mins or so to Agia Marina.

But if he then missed the right path, or got disoriented, or wasn’t as acclimatised to the heat as he assumed he was, being up there for a couple of hours in that extreme heat could easily have given him heatstroke and confusion enough to kill. I guess we forget how vulnerable we are to extreme heat.

I’m a natural sloth who isn’t good in the heat when it gets over 24 degrees, so I’ve never been one for hot beach holidays. But lots of people, especially of that generation, are; and perhaps forget that that ten degree difference between 30 degrees and 40 degrees is the difference between toasty hot for those who like the sun, and genuinely killer heat. I was in France in the 2003 heatwave where it topped 42 degrees. You couldn’t go out. Thousands of older French people just died in the heat, something astonishing like ten thousand or more - it was a national emergency situation. Since then they are better at hot weather emergencies, but it’s shocking how dangerous the heat is.

I’ve also been in 42C heat. You can’t do anything between about 1pm and 7pm.

It was a 30 minute walk from the beach to his accommodation. It only turned into a 3 hour hike because he took a wrong turn and got lost.

I feel nothing but sadness for MM and his family. It's not for me to feel anger. May he rest in peace

I think he purposefully went towards Agia Marina rather than the direct route by road though. So whether it was a wrong turn is something of a moot point.

@Marinade I don’t know about the boat times but I can well imagine him thinking he’d nip round the coast to another nice taverna he might have been to before, stop for a drink and then either carry on the path back from Agia Marina to Symi via the old town, or get a boat back either to join his wife or back to Symi. When you look at the route it does make sense, though I agree with others - not in the extreme heat on your own with no shade, phone or water! But you can see why he took a risk - and then just getting lost was enough for heatstroke to set in.

My DP is always going out without his phone and I always tell him it’s stupid. Our phones are the bane of modern life, but the one thing they do give us is extra safety in being able to navigate/call for help/etc. I’m all for a digital detox, but not when going hiking. Even if it wasn’t extremely hot, it’s a rarely used track and one could easily slip, fall, break an ankle or whatever. But then I’m a worrier too, and I know how the OP feels tbh.

Not sure about this. I go hillwalking alone. I went this weekend and there was snow on the Munro tops. A couple of months ago I bought a garmin inreach and I used it this weekend for the first time, because I was in thehills overnight. Everyone who knows I have bought this has said I am paranoid or has accused me of not having the correct equipment or skills. My own mother, who has never been up a hill, has told me I need to speak to someone. I have had to put my minor children down as emergency contacts on it because the adults in my life think the whole thing is a joke.

One person's sensible precaution is another person's anxiety.

I feel very sad about Michael Mosley, and for now I think people will be more aware of their own mortality as a result of his premature death. In a few short weeks the same people will be back to how they were before.

People die eveyday. It’s life unfortunately

Yes, I can see you care about the family Dr M has left behind, and that’s why you’re on a public forum talking about the ‘idiocy’ of their loved one. 🙄

Don't worry about it.

The news he was missing impacted more deeply than I thought it would.
As time went by, it felt like a relief that they had found him.

Of course that's nothing in comparison to what his family have been through, and nobody is reading that in your original post. Well, one is 🙄

So do l. I thoroughly enjoyed his podcasts and programmes and he came across so well.
Just so sad.

Having done a lot of cliff walking in France, I can see that even if he'd realised he'd taken a wrong turn, that knowing the area he'd be better to go up and over for a quicker route to civilisation.

Like you say it's a moot point now.

Things happen and he wasn't expecting to die.
Always wise after the event.

This is a nice way to think of it x

Couldn’t agree more. Whenever death or tragedy occur it seems humans want to distance themselves and give any number of reasons why such a fate has befallen the deceased and the reasons why it would never happen to them. It could be “ I would never jet ski so it wouldn’t happen to me “ to “ I’m fit and healthy they ate too many takeaways/ it would never happen to me”. The point is it absolutely could happen to anyone at anytime. Sure some people take more risks than others but people die all the time who don’t expect to. People who don’t take risks/ people crossing the road, sitting at home, death is part of life . Let’s not pretend the poor guy did something incredibly radical here. He obviously went for a walk and took a shade with him . He got lost as a result of being taken unwell. It could happen to anyone. We just have to have acceptance that we will all die at some point. There really isn’t anything much to be done to prevent it. You can certainly try to slow a small proportion of disease but so much is outside our control accidents, crime, cancers, neurological and motor diseases. Just see each day as a bonus and try to savour the glimmers of happiness

While everyone makes mistakes his was the type of error you would expect noone over the age of 25 to make. A rookie error from someone who spent his career advising and sometimes criticising people for the way they did things.

I can't stop thinking about this case.

I suppose if he had an umbrella it blocked his view slightly and where he was going. He may have missed a sign.

What I don't understand is when he got to the top, he must have seen that going to way he was going wasn't the right way, but he kept on going?

Maybe he ended up walking that way to see his family/friends across the bay again.

I just find it tragic.

I just can't understand why the people at that holiday resort didn't walk up to the fence or look around the premises if someone was missing.

I think we’re all shocked because it was just so avoidable. People don’t generally die because they’ve gone for a 1.5 mile walk.

If he was feeling unwell maybe he would have sadly died that day anyway back at the hotel. My husband's work colleague said he was going for a walk as didn't feel right. An hour or so later he died suddenly in the street.