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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Campers thought dead man was meditating |
| 2007-06-05 |
| A MAN who died from extreme dehydration after an outback purification ritual was not given immediate medical help because fellow campers believed he was astral travelling, a coronial inquest has heard. Melbourne man Rowan Douglas Cooke, 37, died on November 3, 2004, a day after being dragged unconscious from a heated tent, called a sweat lodge, as part of a native American ritual. He was camping with 10 others from Victoria on an isolated property in the Gammon Ranges in South Australia's far north, undergoing an eight-day ritual of fasting, meditation and purification. The South Australian Coroner's Court today heard Mr Cooke was undertaking a ritual called a pipe ceremony, where participants sweat out toxins and spirits to enter an out-of-body state. The sweat lodge was made of 16 bent poles that formed a dome about 1.2 metres tall, which was covered in blankets and silver insulation. Volcanic rocks, called "grandfathers", were heated in a nearby fire and carried into the tent where water was poured on them to create steam. Counsel assisting the coroner Amy Davis told the court Mr Cooke entered the sweat lodge after midnight, with two others, Adrian Asfar and Maureen Collier. Ms Davis said after some time in the tent, Ms Collier yelled out that she wanted to leave and the campers later found Mr Cooke and Mr Asfar unconscious inside the lodge. The campers dragged the two men out of the lodge and attempted to revive them by performing a series of spiritual rituals including chanting and drumming, she said. They also massaged their hands and feet, buried their feet in the soil and smashed sacred ceramic pipes over them to set their spirits free. "They believed they had been astral travelling or were in a deep meditation space," Ms Davis told the court. Mr Asfar later regained conscious but Mr Cooke did not. At daybreak, two of the campers left the isolated camp to seek help from a homestead, but an ambulance did not arrive to treat Mr Cooke until after 8am. He was pronounced dead at Leigh Creek Hospital at 11.30am after resuscitation efforts failed. The inquest was continuing. |
| Posted by:tipper |
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