pair extremely lucky to be alive

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pair extremely lucky to be alive

Postby wayno » Sun 01 May, 2016 5:24 am

mild weather kept them alive for four nights. not the normal cold wet and windy weather for this time of year.
they left no trip intentions with anyone. they were lucky the road end they left their car at had people living near by and a resident reported the car to the police, otherwise they wouldnt have known where to start searching.
no map, compass or navigation device, no emergency shelter no PLB..
for some reason they were dehydrated despite camping next to a stream.
most rescues recently have involved a large element of good fortune and luck that enabled people to be found and survive,
such as people having cell phone coverage. in this scenario there was no cell phone coverage, and that was one reason the search didnt start till three days after they were overdue and didnt find them for another day...


http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/7946638 ... rth-island

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=11631593
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Re: pair extremely lucky to be alive

Postby Gadgetgeek » Sun 01 May, 2016 8:24 am

Proves just how fast most searches can have a good result, had they been called in as overdue after one night, its likely they would have been out the next day.

As far as the dehydration, if their experience is only walking in the US they may have been overcautious on the water quality, or due to hunger she was just not drinking enough. I think that's more likely.

Extremely fortunate, hopefully others realize how close they came and use it as a guide for being more careful, rather than a reason to relax.
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Re: pair extremely lucky to be alive

Postby ofuros » Sun 01 May, 2016 9:43 am

Did they do anything right ?.....as you said, lucky there was no loss of life.
Mountain views are good for my soul...& getting to them is good for my waistline !
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Re: pair extremely lucky to be alive

Postby wayno » Sun 01 May, 2016 10:06 am

eventually they did, eventually after days of wandering around they finally stopped, laid out a help sign in a clearing and waited where they were, kept each other warm and rationed their food...
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Re: pair extremely lucky to be alive

Postby wayno » Sun 01 May, 2016 2:25 pm

from the land of the long white clouds...
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Re: pair extremely lucky to be alive

Postby CasualNerd » Sun 01 May, 2016 2:39 pm

"Unshakeable love and faith saved us, say rescued US trampers" :?

I think I'd rather be prepared than rely on faith in the bush.
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Re: pair extremely lucky to be alive

Postby wayno » Sun 01 May, 2016 2:48 pm

didnt help that the policeman in charge of the search said they did everything correctly..
there have been a lot of people rescued recently that luck has played a large part in their survival. often extremely lucky that they had cell phone coverage to get rescued before they died of exposure or their injuries.
the Tararuas dont feature on a lot of walkers radars, they arent big by NZ standards , there are more scenic places to visit, you dont need climbing gear to do the tracks, they are reasonably straight forward albeit rough... but go off track and the terrain and bush can get extremely nasty. I've averaged half a kilometer per hour on some trips i've done there off track sometimes you hardly touch the ground because the vegetation and dead trees are so dense. the tracks arent all marked out that well.. and thats not unusual for a great deal of NZ tracks, especially the ones that arent the more popular ones. a lot of NZ bush is the density of density of dense jungle. you could be lost a couple of metres from a track....
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Re: pair extremely lucky to be alive

Postby Gadgetgeek » Sun 01 May, 2016 3:36 pm

sounds like a track a buddy of mine did, no one thought they should tell him it had been closed and unmaintained for years. he met a track clearing crew on the last day, they were a bit shocked to see him. He had a check-in plan in place, but luck kept him from having to be rescued, rather than luck providing a quick rescue.
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Re: pair extremely lucky to be alive

Postby wayno » Sun 01 May, 2016 4:29 pm

from the land of the long white clouds...
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Re: pair extremely lucky to be alive

Postby wayno » Mon 02 May, 2016 7:20 am

from what i can make out from the location they were found in, they were past the worst of the terrain and onto flat stream bed and should have been able to easily walk out from where they were, they were found within a couple of kilometres from their car.
but because they had no no effective means of navigation and didn't know where they were they stopped due to exhaustion and the need to conserve energy and there they stayed for days..
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Re: pair extremely lucky to be alive

Postby izogi » Mon 02 May, 2016 9:28 am

wayno wrote:but go off track and the terrain and bush can get extremely nasty. I've averaged half a kilometer per hour on some trips i've done there off track sometimes you hardly touch the ground because the vegetation and dead trees are so dense.


Also on that topic, the western Tararuas (where they were) get a much higher rainfall than the east, and so in general the bush there tends to be more dense. It's mostly due to their exposure to the west and the way in which the geography channels weather through the Cook Straight (between the two main islands).

In the circumstances they were very fortunate with the weather.
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Re: pair extremely lucky to be alive

Postby wayno » Mon 02 May, 2016 3:15 pm

another person very lucky to be alive, crawled for two hours with a broken leg to get cell phone reception

http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news ... g-on-track
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