Science of Survival: The Devil’s Highway, Part II

Outside Podcast

Sports, Wilderness

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2016

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For centuries, the Devil’s Highway—a waterless pathway through desert in southern Arizona—was one of the deadliest places in North America, killing thousands of Spanish conquistadors, gold prospectors, and migrants. Construction of a circumnavigating railroad allowed fatalities to taper at the end of the 19th century, but in the early 2000s, the route again became lethal. As immigration crackdown increased along other sections of the U.S.–Mexico border, illegal immigrants resorted to using the desert for entry, unaware that it would kill them. One infamous modern tragedy along the Devil’s Highway took place in spring 2001, when a large group, led by an experienced guide, set out from the Mexican border town of Senoyta. The disturbing outcome—and many others like it—helped researchers develop the Death Index, a new model for predicting dehydration fatalities.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of the Science of Survival is brought to you by Bamba's socks,
0:05.0	and it's the second of two episodes about extreme dehydration, a survival situation which socks are surprisingly capable at helping you overcome.
0:14.0	Socks are not only useful as rudimentary filters, but cotton socks can actually soak up enough morning
0:18.9	due that it's possible to suck moisture straight from the fabric.
0:22.3	Seriously, it's way better than licking a bunch of leaves.
0:25.0	So, if you're like me and there's even a small chance you're going to be putting your socks in your mouth,
0:30.0	you'll probably want a sock that's had some thought put into its fabric.
0:33.0	Bombust uses long staple Pima cotton, named for the Pima tribe in Arizona that grew it originally.
0:39.0	Long staple cotton are stronger, softer, and they don't pill as much when you wear them, meaning no little
0:44.5	balls of cotton on your tongue after taking a life-saving suck from your sock.
0:49.3	Bambas.
0:50.3	Sock so good, their marketing people have never even asked to see what we're writing about them ahead of time.
0:55.0	Save 20% by visiting bombbus.com slash outside and enter outside during checkout.
1:00.0	That's B-BAS.com.
1:03.0	Outside. From out to From Outside magazine and PRX, this is the science of survival.
1:17.0	Well, they were, you know, they were men from Veracruz, working men,
1:29.2	just guys, just working men.
1:32.2	When they attempted to cross the Mexican border in May 2001,
1:36.0	there wasn't anything all that special about the group that would come to be known as the Yuma 14.
1:41.0	We're not even totally sure 14 is the right number. We know that they
1:45.3	set out into the desert on foot and we know that it swallowed them up. Nobody
1:51.2	knows. No one knows how many guys started out and nobody knows what happened to a large number of them who vanished.
	...

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