Daphne woman dies out in cold February 11, 2008
Posted by jerryh8391 in Educational.Tags: car, life, window, woman
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People! Remember, break the window! $100 for a window is worth less than your life!
Staff Reporter
Sandra Ordner, 47, of Daphne, whose body was found last week outside her locked SUV at a North Carolina mountain parking lot, died of hypothermia hours after she told her husband she was going hiking, the local sheriff said Thursday.
Macon County, N.C., Sheriff Robert Holland said that it had been extremely cold and raining in the hours before Ordner’s body was discovered in the parking lot of the Whiteside Mountain Trail.
Ordner’s keys and cellular telephone were locked inside her 2002 Land Rover sport utility vehicle, Holland said.
<!– if (parseFloat(navigator.appVersion) == 0) { document.write(”); } –> <A href=”http://ads.al.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/www.al.com/xml/story/Mobile/n/nmet/@StoryAd?x”><IMG src=”http://ads.al.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/www.al.com/xml/story/Mobile/n/nmet/@StoryAd?x”></A> Holland said Ordner was alone and her husband, Paul William Ordner, was at home in Daphne. She had called her husband using her cell phone on Jan. 31 to tell him she was going to hike the trail.
Her death initially was investigated as a homicide, but the autopsy determined that she died from hypothermia, Holland said.
“She may have gotten caught up in the rain when she was coming down from the trail,” the sheriff said. “It was extremely cold, and she may have been suffering from hypothermia. The body and mind don’t work right when you suffer from hypothermia.”
Holland said that the presence of “smudges” on the SUV windows suggested that Ordner had tried to break the glass with her hands. But, he said, there were no sticks or rocks by the SUV to indicate that Ordner had picked anything up to strike the glass.
Her body was outside the SUV’s passenger side.
Holland said Ordner called her husband about 9 a.m., so it’s likely that she began the hike about 10 a.m.
According to the sheriff, the trail is about 2 miles long and forms a loop that brings hikers back to the parking lot.
You make it sound easy. Consider this, copied from http://www.crossroadschronicle.com/articles/2008/02/06/news/01death.txt
Nelson said what they believe happened is that it got dark on Thursday evening, and that in the very cold weather, Ordner became disoriented and hypothermia started to set in.
“People don’t act normal when suffering from hypothermia,” Holland said. “It was dark and she was unfamiliar with the surrounding area.”
“She finally collapsed near her vehicle,” Neslon said.
There were no rocks or sticks large enough to break the window, Nelson said, and ice had formed all over the ground, causing many loose items on the ground to stick.