I had the same thought when I read about this family! It could have been me. Living in AZ, I had two close calls. One on a hike where I was new to the desert - brought too little water and "had" to get to the destination; another time on a hike in Devil's Canyon where the destination was a quarry. Made it in, swam, but barely made it out. The whole group ran out of water. And we were experienced, plus the high was only 90 that day. We'd been scrambling over heated boulders all day.