Now, an important element of the story was that the Donner-Reed party had splintered due to the horrible traveling conditions, each looking out for themselves and not trusting the other family. Now, in early November, most of the families, except for the Donner family, made it up a massive nearly vertical slope of a thousand feet to Truckee Lake, which is now known as Donner Lake. The Donner party, however, became trapped five miles below the rest of the party, who became settled into abandoned cabins that were built by previous pioneers. Out of desperation, some of the pioneers at Truckee Lake attempted to escape, which led to the first natural deaths. Antonio, the animal handler, was the first to die, with Franklin Graves being the next casualty. And as the blizzard progressed, one of the pioneers, Patrick Dolan, went cuckoo, insane, took off all his clothes, ran naked in the woods, and died a few hours later. Not long after that, some of the group began to eat the flesh from Dolan's body.