David SACKS
David SACKS
Theory on lost man
BRISBANE: May 1988
Police believe American tourist Mr David Sacks, 21, missing for
three weeks in north Queensland rainforest, might be affected by fatigue, hunger
and the experience of being lost.
Police said a man seen on Thursday at a campfire might have been the missing
medical student. They said his not answering a note lowered from a helicopter
and then vanishing would be explained if he was suffering from mental pressure.
Search scaled down
May 1988 BRISBANE:
A two-week search involving the Army and Queensland police for a
missing American medical student, Mr David Sacks, in the State's far north, has
been scaled down.
A Malanda police spokesman said last night that the Army had withdrawn from the
search two days ago and police were now only checking any new information from
the public.
"Apart from the sighting on Thursday night, we really have nothing to go on,"
the spokesman said.
The police search team involving members of the State Emergency Services was
jointly co-ordinated by an inspector at Mareeba and a sergeant at Cairns, he
said.
Both men could not be reached for comment last night.
Mr Sacks, a 21-year old medical student, vanished on May 5 after telling
companions he intended climbing Mount Bartle Frere, Queensland's highest peak.
On Thursday an Army helicopter crew spotted a red-haired and bearded man thought
to be Mr Sacks at a campfire but attempts to confirm whether it was him failed.
Police said the man had not seemed to understand a rescue note lowered to him
and had torn it up and burnt it. He had been reported to have then climbed up
and down a tree.
The helicopter had left to refuel and by the time it had returned the man and
his sleeping roll had gone.
Searches of an area 10 kilometres west of the 1600-metre peak following the
helicopter sighting had so far been unsuccessful.
Police believe Mr Sacks may be mentally unstable by now because of the effects
of fatigue, hunger and the experience of being lost in the rainforest.
And they say this would explain the strange behaviour of the man at the campfire
if it had been Mr Sacks.
Meanwhile the mother of the missing hiker, Mrs Linda Sacks, had reportedly said
yesterday that the man spotted last Thursday night had not been her son.
Mrs Sacks had she had not given up hope, but she believed police had. She
believed her son would survive through what he had learned of bushcraft since he
came to Australia.
He was with a group of American college students doing a biology project in the
North Queensland and rainforests when he went missing.
Search halted for Plymouth Mtg. man lost in Australia By Laurie T. Conrad
Special to The Inquirer
The search has been called off for a Plymouth Meeting man missing for more than a month in the mountainous jungles of northern Queensland, according to Australian authorities. David Sacks, 21, was last seen May 5 when he set off alone to climb Mount Bartlefrere in the Bellenben Ker Range, said Cecil Austen, a regional superintendent in the police department of Cairns, Queensland. He described the area as "dangerous country for anyone to travel on his own." In an interview last week, Austen said the search was halted Tuesday after almost three weeks because searchers on foot and in helicopters had covered "all the known tracks in the rugged terrain where we believe David to be lost." Some trails through the jungle are etched into steep cliffs of 500 feet or more, he said, adding, "If somebody slipped off there, we'll never find them." Sacks, a junior majoring in human biology at Brown University in Providence, R.I., had been on a yearlong leave of absence to do field study work abroad, according to Robert Reichley, vice president for university relations. Sacks went to Australia through a program of the School for Field Studies in Beverly, Mass., Reichley said. The program, which included survival training, ended a few days before Sacks left on his hike, he said. Sacks applied for readmission to Brown shortly before his disappearance, Reichley said. The application letter, dated May 2, "was one of the last letters anyone received from him," he said. Sacks' mother, Linda Rothchild Sacks, flew to Australia last month to await word of her son. Sacks' father, Robert Sacks, could not be reached for comment.