Thinking About James Kim

For days, the news has been captivated by stories about the James Kim family who went missing in Southern Oregon late last month.

In case you have been under a rock for the past week, the senior editor for CNET and his family was headed back to San Francisco from a Thanksgiving work/pleasure trip to Seattle and Portland when they failed to return.  A massive manhunt ensued and mirabile dictu, his wife Kati and daughters Penelope and Sabine were found December 4 in their Saab station wagon on a Forest Service road between Grants Pass and Gold Beach, Oregon, thanks to a cell phone signal that had been triangulated by a wireless company. But James was not there; on December 2 he had gone off in search of help.  On December 6, his body was found in Big Windy Creek near its confluence with the Rogue River.

The story took many gut-wrenching turns during the week it captured the headlines:  the family’s mysterious disappearance on the Saturday after Thanksgiving after being seen at a Denny’s in Roseburg, Oregon; the heartwarming discovery of Kati Kim and her daughters and the tragic ending when James Kim’s lifeless body was pulled from the creek. 
Perhaps that is why people seemed to bond with the likeable, hip young Korean-American and his family and why people want to defend the decisions he made.

He tried to do the best he could for his family.”  San Francisco Chronicle writer C.W. Nevius

James Kim did nothing wrong. He was trying to save his family. He thought that if he could get to the river, he could make it to the town. Oregon State Police Lieutenant Gregg Hastings

I admire his effort, I truly do. He has a lot of intestinal fortitude. He comes from the city without a lot of outdoors experience, and he was thinking on his feet, he was very meticulous. ... He had a strong will to survive.  Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters

And yet and yet…from the moment he turned off onto Bear Camp Road, James Kim made a cascade of wrong decisions based on bad or incomplete information that imperiled his family and led ultimately to his death.  Taking his family up a narrow, twisting mountain road when ice and snow were in the forecast was the wrong decision.  Heading off on foot into a trackless wilderness wearing tennis shoes without a clear idea of where he was or where he was going was the wrong decision.  But no one will say that.  It’s as if because he was a good person who meant to do the right thing his actions are immune from criticism.  “[I]f it makes you feel better about yourself to criticize him, go ahead” harrumphs C.W. Nevius. “But don’t be surprised if no one wants to hear it.”

I'm not saying this to put myself up or to put him down.  Any one of us might have made the same decisions in his place.  But all the accolades for a brave husband and father who gave his life searching for help are drowning out some important lessons that could be learned from this: smart people do stupid things and bad things happen to good people.

Comments

[susanna]

He is dead and he wanted to help his family - this puts him above criticism... Though of course it would have been wiser if he had stayed in his car. Cars are easier to be found than people...

I remember that I once spoke to an Australian woman about European tourists in Australia. They have no idea about the vastness of the country. They get the advice: If something happens, by all meanst stay with your car. We can locate it on the road, but not you in the woods or the bush or the desert...

Still I don't know if I had not done the same thing. It is difficult to remain rational in such a situation, and just staying in the car and waiting and not and not being able to do anything can get on one's nerves.

Still it should be said what the wisest decision would have been - for future cases.