James Kim, CNET editor, a hero

James Kim died alone of hypothermia after hiking 15 miles in the wilds of Oregon in a desperate attempt to get help for his wife and two small daughters stranded in their car on a logging road blocked by snow and ice. I feel a bond--I'm from the Pacific Northwest and have traveled a similar route with my husband, trying to get from I-5 to the Oregon Coast. It's not easy. I'm also a parent and can imagine my family getting lost on a dark snowy night with tired children in the backseat.

And yes, I've had to deal with my impatience toward James--why, oh why, didn't he turn the car around sooner? (He drove approximately 15 miles into the wilderness on Bear Camp Road, then approximately another 15 on the fateful logging road spur, before they stopped to rest but got snowed in.)

This story is heartbreaking. I applaud the self-sacrificing efforts of the regular citizens--like the cell phone employees, Eric Fuqua and co-worker Noah Pugsley, and John Rachor, the helicopter owner--who all invested their personal time and resources to help find this family and provided key information. But I shake my head at officials who failed to find James because of assumptions, lack of sustained urgency, and failure to get heat-seeking National Guard helicopters in the air. Read what happened: "Confusion hampered search for Kims: Gaps in communication among agencies and leadership shortcomings proved costly."

It's a difficult read. I've followed many articles related to this story from various news sources, finding some less accurate than others. So I kept reading, looking for the confirmed and verified details.

Now it's tempting to assign blame, which I don't enjoy--but different officials and searchers assumed the Kim family didn't take that spur off the the road to the right and that someone else had checked out that spur. Their assumptions cost James his life.

I hate assumptions.

To read an uplifting piece about James Kim, CNET senior editor of technology, click here.