Hikers needing rescue services

[Marshmallow]

I was just watching on television where a hiker had to be rescued from the trees after being caught out in the elements for three days. His shoes were frozen to the ice. How do people end up in these situations? Have you ever had to be rescued? I'm careful, but I know so much can go wrong.

[Grandpa]

"THEY" are all stupid jerks, but when it happens to "ME, or YOU", we have reasonable explanations as to how it happened.

No, I have never had to be rescued. Maybe should have a time or two but was too dumb to know I was in trouble so worked it out on my own.

Most SAR groups are volunteer. Those amazing guys donate their time and their equipment to practice, practice, rehearse, and practice to extract idiots from their predictments. When they have fund raisers to buy better equipment, be sure to support them as whole heartedly as you can. They are the guys on the line that may just save your life, and they do it out of the goodness of their heart.

If you are really in a bind, and a helicopter is required, the cost will run into the thousands. SIL said the life flight out of his hospital runs about $7,000 a flight. If you have a good medical insurance, it will cover parts of that expense but usually not all. If you carry a SPOT, there is an additional extraction insurance available at a very reasonable price. However, it too has restrictions so be sure you know where the money is coming from if you plan to go into the wilderness unprepared, or under trained or if you plan to do stupid things.

[Pathfinder1]

Hi...


No, fortunately, I've never gotten myself into any of those circumstances...not that it couldn't have happened. (Hey, small planes go down all over!).

As to why do 'they' get into these predicaments? Well. I can only guess. Many times victims are simply unprepared...or rank amateurs...or didn't hear or heed their weather forecasts...or their compass...or their maps...and so forth.

I hadn't heard about the guy you mentioned, but I sure hope he fares well after his experience.

[bsmit212]

Fortunately no, knock on wood. Like you said, things can go so wrong so quickly out in the wild. Sometimes people get stuck in situations that they cannot help and need assistance. However, sometime I do hear stories about people that need resuce from situations that I feel like could either have been sovled simple by themselfs, or could have been total avoid with a little knowladge. I just hope that those people learn to repect the wild more and perpare better the next time or stay home. It is hard to say if it was a true emergancy or someone just being stupid till the whole story comes in, and then it depends on the story.

[RingTwist]

Originally Posted by Grandpa

"THEY" are all stupid jerks, but when it happens to "ME, or YOU", we have reasonable explanations as to how it happened.

This made me laugh. No, I've never had to be rescued but then I'm not much of a daredevil, so I haven't found myself in precarious situations.

[Cappy]

The guy I saw on the news was hiking the AT and was on the tail end of a 2000 mike walk.
the storm snuck up on him and dumped so much snow on him he spent a whole day going only 1 mile. So he rigged a shelter hunkered down and got a message out on his cell phone. Took the SAR guys 2 days to find him. he seemed fine and ok when they showed him walking out to meet the SAR team. When interviewed he said he ws beginning to wory cause food was running low. I think like most things the media prolly blew it way pouta proportion.

[Grandpa]

Hindsight is 20/20 so unless we were there it is pointless to point out his mistakes, if any. There is a time to slog ahead and a time to hole up. In similar situations, I have done both but my situations had variances from his. The important thing is; he walked out healthy and alive. And thank another SAR team for another rescue.

[Gondor]

To me, taking a chance and doing what you aren't prepared for and them getting into a situation where you have to be rescued is a definition of a jerk. If I'm going off trail into unknown I bring so much stuff that even prepared people think I'm an idiot. This allows me to call these folks jerks.

[Judy Ann]

The week that Sandy blew through, combined with the Arctic Front heading South was challenging to meteorologists and the weather was constantly changing on the AT. When I arrived at Grayson Highlands, VA on Thursday and got my backcountry permit there was only a 30% chance of rain for Saturday. Fortunately, I left detailed plans with the Park office and the Assistant Manager of the park caught up with me at my base camp to let me know that instead of a chance of rain, they were expecting at least a foot of snow. I was incredulous to say the least, but back in the comfort of my home watching the snow in the Highlands I was grateful that the Virginia State Park Service works over and above the call of duty to look out for hikers.

This person was a south bound hiker and when he last left civilization his weather report was the same one that I had heard. Anyone hiking in the Appalachians in October knows to expect anything, but not everyone would be prepared for a snowfall exceeding last years in one dump.

It is easy to be an armchair umpire, however if it weren't for paying attention to some of our "experts" here, I might have found myself in a similar situation on my first solo backpacking trip. Fortunately, I try to err on the side of caution, but I could envision myself with a group of folks that would have taken on Mother Nature.

JMHO

[ghostdog]

If you go out enough, you will find yourself in a un-forecast storm or a storm that greatly exceeds the forecast. That is what happened to the guy in the story. He was very experience and quite well prepared to be out there. How do you prepare for the exceedingly small possibility of chest deep snow when mere inches are forecast? I guess you could carry snowshoes, snow shovel and avalanche gear along with two extra weeks of food…but I doubt even the judgmental folks ever do that.

We were out east one year, I believe it was 2006 and had just gotten back from the Adirondacks when an un-forecast storm hit Buffalo where Girlfriend’s parents live. It started to snow as we hit the edge of town. 30 minutes later the entire New York Throughway was shut down and those folks that got caught were there for over 12 hours before food and water arrived to them. The power went down in the city about 30 minutes after we got to her folks house and many didn’t have power restored for several weeks. You could not buy batteries, food or fuel because there was no power to run the stores and their cash registers, no power to pump fuel out the ground at gas stations. It all happened in an instant with no fore warning. The streets were blocked city wide with broken trees and branches and they have some humongous trees. It was a disaster but they just happen at times.

We keep about 60 lbs of rice and 60 lbs of beans on hand in the house here at all times along with a lot of other stocked food and have the storage containers for 50 gallons of water. You can’t haul all of that in the backcountry when you go and like Grandpa we have found ourselves in storms that were not forecast and the intensity had us hunkering down sort of like that AT hiker in the news that we are discussing. We did okay but didn’t have all that very deep snow to contend with. We take some extra food but when you are backpacking in, there is a limit to how much extra food you can carry. We have never called for rescue or even considered it but it is easy to see how it can happen to those who go out often enough in the backcountry. Sure some are kind of clueless but not all of them. Things happen to good people who are experienced and adequately prepared.

The power of nature and weather can be amazing, hugely more powerful than we think we are. Like they say, brains only get you so far and luck always runs out.

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