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thedrifter
09-05-07, 04:59 PM
Hesperia man found dead in desert
He died of exposure, dehydration on Marine base
Melissa Pinion-Whitt

TWENTYNINE PALMS - A search and rescue team found the body of a Hesperia man on a U.S. Marines base Sunday, a day after he had disappeared while scavenging for scrap metal.

Michael Cuhna, who apparently died of heat exposure, was found by members of the Morongo Basin Search and Rescue team at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center training range, San Bernardino County sheriff's officials said.

Cuhna and a friend John Carbonelli went to the base in search of scrap metal, but their vehicle broke down. They tried to walk out of the base with no water, food or shirts and became separated. Carbonelli found help at a home in the 57000 block of Touchstone Boulevard and reported his friend missing. Deputies turned the case over to military police.

Coroner's officials say Cuhna died of exposure and dehydration.

Ellie

thedrifter
09-06-07, 08:58 AM
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 6, 2007 Last modified: Wednesday, September 5, 2007 4:04 PM PDT

Man dies scrapping at MCAGCC


MCAGCC — Exposure and dehydration appear to have caused the death of a Hesperia man, who died over the weekend after becoming lost while illegally aboard a Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center training range.

According to a sheriff’s department report, deputies were called to the 57000 block of Touchstone Boulevard in the Landers area at 10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 1, where a sunburned and dehydrated John Carbonelli reported Michael Cuhna missing.

Carbonelli told deputies that he and Cuhna were at the Combat Center looking for scrap metal when their vehicle broke

down at an unknown location.

Carbonelli and Cuhna tried to walk off the base with no water, food or shirts but become separated. Carbonelli was turned over to the Provost Marshal’s Office for investigation of trespass on government property.

The Provost Marshal’s Office also conducted a search on the training ranges for Cuhna and the vehicle.

The office advised deputies on Sunday, Sept. 2 that they located the vehicle during the night. The Morongo Basin Search and Rescue team and the Marine Corps then launched a search which led to the discovery of Cuhna’s body. The San Bernardino County Coroner’s Office was notified and responded.

“This is not what you want to do,” Capt. Neal Fisher, Combat Center director of public affairs, said of the people base officials refer to as scrappers. “It’s going to turn out bad.”

Fisher said he believes the punishment for trespassing onto the base involves jail time but that the real danger is loss of life.

“It’s just dangerous,” he said, noting that scrappers cannot tell whether the ordnance they are picking up is live or inert.

He referred to the story of a Barstow man who essentially blew himself up in his mobile home because a tank round he picked up from a nearby Army base turned out to be live.

If the ordnance does not kill you, he added, the unforgiving desert likely will.

Every Marine who comes to the Combat Center, he said, is given training in desert survival.

The same day Cuhna was reported missing, he noted, a Marine was separated from other training Marines. Being prepared for the situation, he was later found unharmed by the incident.

Scrappers, Fisher added, sometimes find themselves in the path of training Marines.

“The Marines know we have scrappers,” he said. “We utilize pretty much every square inch of the base that is not buffer.”

When Marines conducting maneuvers aboard the base see scrappers, he said, the Provost Marshals’ Office is called in.

Ellie