New Mexico police think a French couple sacrificed themselves in the scorching desert of White Sands National Monument to save the life of their 9-year-old son.
The child -- who searchers found in remarkably good shape although both his parents had perished from dehydration -- revealed the couple likely died because they had given him most of the stranded threesome’s limited water supply.
The bodies of French tourists Ornella Steiner, 51, and her husband David Steiner, 42, were separately discovered by park rangers little more than a mile from each other last week.
The pair of hikers experienced severe difficulties during a daytrip that was to last only a few amusing hours, but which swiftly and sadly ended in death because they grossly underestimated the harsh terrain of their environment.
The coroner has not yet received all the results of the deceased couple’s autopsies, but officials believe these will substantiate a theory that they each died of thirst and heat-related complications when desert temperatures exceeded 100-degrees Fahrenheit.
The tragedy was predictable and avoidable, however.
Per numerous, multilingual warning-placards posted throughout White Sands national park: there is no shade, vegetation, or bodies of freshwater to be found anywhere along the desert trail that the ill-equipped family had embarked upon.
The sole survivor of the Steiner’s ill-fated journey, their young son, returned to France over the weekend accompanied by a grieving grandmother. Due to his age and the ordeal he suffered, the boy’s name will not been released.
