I know each of us hears a lot of talk about safety, the buddy system (telling someone where you are headed and checking in), and always having a backup plan. I too have heard (and try to practice these principles), but last night/today this really hit home for me.
I work for a natural resource company that owns about 500,000 acres of forest land in the southeastern U.S. I got a text in the middle of the night from a colleague to call him when I got the message-and I knew something wasn't right. One of our foresters never came home last night. This man is in great shape (hikes 2-3 weeks on the AT every year), sticks to a routine (you could set your watch by him) and is as level-headed as they come. Several folks looked for him until 2 or 3 am (didn't realize he was missing until 11 or so, his wife had been working at their church all night), and we got together at daybreak this morning to put together a search party and try to gather any leads on his whereabouts. He had left a note on the board with the name of the community he was headed to (20k acres or so of ours around there) and we started going through any possible tracts he may have been working on, and one of our other foresters who lived in that community went out to look for him. He ended up calling a contractor and getting a lead from a conversation a few days earlier-and 30 minutes (and a bunch of prayers) later the radio went off that his truck had been located deep on a woods road and someone was responding to his calling in the woods. After some walking and yelling, he was found in a 50 foot deep abandoned mine shaft that had vegetation growing all over the top of it. He had fallen in the shaft with a machete in hand (he had been using to whack through the brush) and was conscious but hurting. Through God's grace, he never hit his head, broke his back or anything else on his fall-and had been in the shaft since 12:30 pm on Friday. This was at 9 am Saturday morning. We coordinated with EMS to get them into the woods and they were able to get him out of the shaft and to the hospital, and other than a few bruised/broken ribs and being banged up pretty bad is doing fine.
By the grace of God he was safe and we were able to find him, but this pointed out some opportunities for improvement in our safety planning (even though this couldn't have been prevented). I said all of that to say this-be safe when you are out by yourself (or any time). I for one used to be TERRIBLE about heading to the woods when I worked in the field and not telling someone where I was going, or putting the boat in on the river without any indication of where I was headed. That has changed now. Please take a minute and tell someone exactly where you are going and always have a plan. Be safe and God bless.
I'm glad that the end result is a happy one and your friend will recover.
I'll not highjack this thread, but I think it would be interesting to start a thread to see how people handle being out alone. After becoming trapped in quicksand a few months ago I've certainly changed my own actions.
I read this post with a lot of reflection. I was photographing in Oregon two weeks ago and ended up on
Drift Creek Trail which is not far from Waldport. I realized when I parked my rental car that I had been driving
through the woods for over 20 miles and had not seen a soul. When I started hiking up the trail there was nothing
to show that anyone had been there in days.
No cellphone service, so basically unless I wrote a note and left it in the car no one would have known where
I was. It stayed on my mind the whole time I was on the trail. This post makes me realize I should have
had a better plan. Maybe one of those GPS units that sends back a signal.
Here is another good option the Spot Satellite GPS Messenger. It is on sale at Bass Pro
for $99.95. Problem is you need to buy an annual data plan of $99.
It does send messages, automatic SOS to the closest emergency to you and can actually
send your location to family.
I just read this, thanks for the reminder and I am very glad that he is alright. It reminds me a little of a book I read titled "The Last Season" by Eric Blehm.
PLEASE - BE SAFE OUT THERE!!!!!
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