Don Wildman

How did the rescue attempts pan out?

So tell me how James Reed is reunited with his family.

I want to have perspective on this.

So we're talking about eventually we'll be talking about four different rescue attempts.

One in February, one in March, two in March and one in April.

The first gets out at that time in February.

living in those silk cabins.

They had lived for a month in there, or much more.

What am I saying?

Thirteen people had died, but they were managing to survive, and at that point, without the cannibalism.

When those rescuers arrive, they take out, I think, 23 survivors, leave with those rescuers.

Some were just too weak to go with them, and they remained behind.

It's just another one of these details of the story that most people don't realize is that there were these chapters of rescue attempts that just kept coming in in small waves with massive amounts of time in between, which had to have been terrifying for the people left there because they were the weak ones anyway.

March 1st to the 4th is the second relief.

That's the James Reed mission and all that tragedy that follows.

Meanwhile, George Donner, we've lost track of what happened to him.

Yeah.

And this is the by March 14th, there was the third relief to what is now what becomes known as the starved camp, which has been where the cannibalism is discovered among those trapped individuals.

George Donner dies at Alder Creek.

His wife, Tamsin, refused us to leave and later is found dead, too.