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Wed 12 Oct, 2011 02:34 pm
A North Shore police department received an unusual emergency call about 7 p.m. Tuesday after the couple and their two children -- a 5-year-old and a 3-week-old -- became lost in the corn maze about dusk, police said.
"I'm really scared. It's really dark and we've got a 3-week-old baby with us," the woman told the 911 dispatcher. Police alerted farm management of and a rescue, including a K-9, was organized.
K-9 officer Justin Ellenton said when he got to the entrance of the maze, he yelled and family answered.
The family, whose name was not released, was found about 25 feet inside the maze unharmed.
"The son was getting upset and they didn't want to have to go through the rest of the maze to get to the end. They kind of wanted out right now," said farm manager Rich Potter.
The maze, a tourist attraction that winds people down paths between towering 9-foot tall cornstalks, generally takes about an hour to complete.
The owner of the farm said no one has ever gotten lost in the maze before, and offered the family free tickets.
The maze path has maps and signs to help people along the way.
Would you call 9-11? How would you get out?
@Linkat,
Linkat wrote:Would you call 9-11? How would you get out?
From today's "Salem News" (pages 1 and 7):
I mean, it really isn't very large, that 7-acre Headless Horseman maze at Connors Farm. But in panic with a 3-week-old baby ...
Quote:Connors said the incident managed to draw a new type of tourist to the corn maze: television news crews.
How would I get out? With a normal 'instinct' of directions.
What I've heard is that you should always turn right (or always left).
This will take you down some dead ends, but will eventually get you out.
@George,
And why wouldn't you just follow the noise of the cars on road - you can simply push through the corn stalks (it ain't brick walls ya know).
@George,
Oh and here is part of the call...
Husband: "I see lights over there at the place, but we can’t get there, we’re smack right in the middle of the cornfield."
If he can see lights - why didn't he just follow them?
@Linkat,
Linkat wrote: . . . you can simply push through the corn stalks . . .
Good point, but I'd hate to ruin the maze "walls" if I didn't really have to.
@Linkat,
As a young child I and a neighbor girl got lost in a wheat field where the wheat was many times our high.
We just kept going in one direction until we came out of it.
My father told me that he could track us by the wave of bending wheat we was causing.
@Linkat,
It's getting so people can't turn left at an intersection without an arrow... The ability to problem solve is being lost the more we trust in the law, and feel we are damned if we do not follow the beaten path... Which reminds me of a story... A friend of mine was on his way to Vietnam, and being part Blackfoot Lacota, they sent him to scout camp... In one part of it they had to follow directions with a compass to reach a certain destination, but this was at a major army base and they sent thousands of grunts through their scout camp every year, so my buddy, with his partner simply followed the trail already blazed by the thousand feet before, and reached the destination hours before anyone else in the platoon did... And the sargent said: You did great; but if I send you back now they will just put you to work, so why don't you guys just find a log to hide behind for a couple of hours... It seems as though pathfinding is a lost art to the modern man... I have heard of Indians being able to track a bird walking on moss, and people leave such distinctive trails... Too bad no one left them a trail of bread crumbs...
@George,
I honestly cannot imagine a man with a wife and children being so helpless that he would call 9-11 and then only be 25 feet from the entrance. Must be why they will not post the family's name - I would find more horror in my name being plastered through the news of being lost in a corn maze than in actually being lost.
@George,
George wrote:
Linkat wrote: . . . you can simply push through the corn stalks . . .
Good point, but I'd hate to ruin the maze "walls" if I didn't really have to.
So they had a lot of baggage, stroller, purses, backpacks, diaper bag; and otherwise, not being able to get through a wall of corn with out damage to it is another way of saying F A T...
Sounds a lot like a publicity stunt in the same genre of the balloon boy hoax.
Quote:
Would you call 9-11? How would you get out?
Earlier poster was right - following the left wall will inevitably lead you out of any maze.
Cycloptichorn
@Linkat,
Quote:The family, whose name was not released, was found about 25 feet inside the maze unharmed.
25 feet? And they called the cops?
@JPB,
better safe than sorry.
haven't you seen children of the corn...?
I'm mixed on all this. I'm not a big maze fan for various inchoate reasons, not that I've ever been in one - too contrived, re nature, but then I like a lot of formal/contrived gardens, even as I prefer informal, so I'm inconsistent. They tend to have spiritual aspects, and I am so not. I'm night blind so am unlikely to be in there as it's getting darker and darker.. talk about thrashing around in corn stalks. I could probably ruin the place by myself. And if there spider webs, I'd simply go berserk.
On the other hand, I've a pretty good sense of direction most of the time and often like puzzles.
On the family, I figure one of them, not the baby, panicked and the other went along.
I too was thinking of the "just keep turning right"
They sound like morons.
chai (ask me about the time I escaped the Minotaur) tea
@chai2,
chai2 wrote: . . . chai (ask me about the time I escaped the Minotaur) tea
Save that for another thread.
@JPB,
Yeah, 25 feet. For reference, a full size pickup with crewcab is twenty feet.
@chai2,
"The key to solving these mazes is to realize that the Minotaur follows a rigid program. He doesn’t do what you would do if you were a Minotaur. He doesn’t look ahead more than one turn. And, most importantly, he will choose a horizontal move before a vertical move."
Oh man, this guy is gonna be razzed so badly . . .
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