The floodlight outside the house where Matt Marr lives will stay on until his son, Zach, is home. Zach Marr, of Glenview Drive, disappeared in Boston nearly two weeks ago. Whenever Zach went out in the evening, his family left that floodlight on for him, and he turned it out when he came back. That way, they knew Zach was home.
Zach Marr. (Courtesy photo)
Zach has been the subject of an intense missing-person search since Feb. 13, when he was last seen outside the Bell in Hand Tavern in Boston, where he was celebrating his recent birthday with his cousins. In the past few days, police dive teams have focused on an area of the Charles River near North Station. According to reports in The Boston Globe and other local media, footage from a video security camera shows a young man walking on the train tracks to the trestle bridge that leads over the Charles and then disappearing into the water.
Zach became separated from his cousins when he went outside the tavern for a cigarette around 1:40 a.m., on nearly the coldest night of the winter. According to close family friend Andra Athos of Finn Road, the family believes that reports about Zach’s disappearance have not put enough emphasis on the critical role of hypothermia. Temperatures were close to zero, and he did not have his jacket when he left the bar for what would ordinarily have been just a few minutes.
Perils of hypothermia
Hypothermia can quickly lead to confusion, disorientation, lack of coordination, and poor decision making, according to medical authorities. And even a single alcoholic drink hastens the effect by dilating blood vessels in the skin, which makes a person feel warm. But the effect is to draw heat away from the core of the body and to the surface, where it vanishes quickly in cold weather. On such a cold night, literature on the subject suggests, Zach Marr could easily have become hypothermic before he realized it.
Matt Marr calls Zach’s disappearance “100 percent a tragic accident” with no indication of foul play, Athos told the Press by telephone. And, while police divers continue to search, the floodlight will stay on until Zach is brought home.
