Update: ABC News has a piece on the role of breastfeeding in this story. Thanks to Andi at Mama Knows Breast for this!
I'm sure that some of you have been following the story of the Kim family, who went missing after Thanksgiving while en route from Seattle to San Francisco.
Yesterday the mother, Kati Kim, and her two daughters were rescued from a snowy Oregon mountain top. The father, James Kim, is still missing. The San Jose Mercury News reports that breastfeeding played a key role in keeping the children, ages 7 months and 4 years, nourished and hydrated during the nine day ordeal in their car:
A San Francisco mother kept her infant and 4-year-old daughters alive by nursing them both during their nine-day ordeal snowbound in the Oregon mountains before being found Monday.
CNN reports that there was no food or water in the car. The Mercury News article points out some similarities with a 1993 case in which breastfeeding played a key role in the survival of a stranded family:
The Kim story is reminiscent of the ordeal endured by James Stolpa and his wife and infant son in 1993. When the Paso Robles family became snowbound in northwestern Nevada, James Stolpa left his family in a sleeping bag in a natural cave, where the mother nursed her son for three days until Stolpa found help.
Anybody else have the chills?
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