FJ Cruisers of Northern California
Rescue at Anza-Borrego
Garrett (GRM) posted a story that i wanted to share with everyone. a trail run turned into a rescue mission at Anza-Borrego (SoCal) yesterday. i think i will be renting a sat phone for our summer trail runs.
The record is set… 30 minutes from the top of sheep canyon back to the main road.
Saturday was supposed to be a nice relaxing drive up coyote canyon. We met for breakfast at the new Red Ocotillo. Made a nice leisurely drive up the trail. Even stopped to take a few photos along the way. That is, until we drove to the top of Sheep Canyon.
You can keep hiking at the end of Sheep Canyon to the Oasis. It’s about 1.5 mile further up from the trail. I had every intention to hike it. It was too bad a local boy scout troop beat us to the trail… and a 15 year old scout fell 20’ off the rocks and broke his femur. Our nice leisurely trip turned into a rescue operation very quickly.
I found out about the accident from the scoutmasters running down the trail. We didn’t have cell signal, so the only option was to drive out. I put a halt on the scoutmaster driving down his duramax (props to him for getting a stock crew cab long bed up that trail) and put him in the passenger seat of my old Toyota. On the drive down we managed to find a guy from search and rescue, and a jeeper with a ham radio. 30 minutes later, we were on pavement, calling 911.
30 minutes later, the first sheriff arrives. Scoutmaster gives the GPS coordinates to the sheriff for the helicopter, and I lead the sheriff back to the oasis.
Again, 30 minutes up coyote canyon.
By the time we get there, 2 helicopters are on the scene to help the scout out of the situation.
We watched the rest of the recovery, but weren’t able to help much. The accident happened at 11:15, and the kid was finally flying away at 2:30.
We ended our day with a run up Calcite mine.
Lessons Learned:
• Always have GPS coordinates of your location
• Have a way to contact emergency services
• Ham radios don’t always work (the one we had couldn’t contact emergency services)
i am glad that the hams on our site are already in the process of figuring out our emergency communications protocol, which includes researching repeaters in the various areas we wheel. this will complement our recovery and first aid strategy to help provide us with peace of mind on the trails.
The record is set… 30 minutes from the top of sheep canyon back to the main road.
Saturday was supposed to be a nice relaxing drive up coyote canyon. We met for breakfast at the new Red Ocotillo. Made a nice leisurely drive up the trail. Even stopped to take a few photos along the way. That is, until we drove to the top of Sheep Canyon.
You can keep hiking at the end of Sheep Canyon to the Oasis. It’s about 1.5 mile further up from the trail. I had every intention to hike it. It was too bad a local boy scout troop beat us to the trail… and a 15 year old scout fell 20’ off the rocks and broke his femur. Our nice leisurely trip turned into a rescue operation very quickly.
I found out about the accident from the scoutmasters running down the trail. We didn’t have cell signal, so the only option was to drive out. I put a halt on the scoutmaster driving down his duramax (props to him for getting a stock crew cab long bed up that trail) and put him in the passenger seat of my old Toyota. On the drive down we managed to find a guy from search and rescue, and a jeeper with a ham radio. 30 minutes later, we were on pavement, calling 911.
30 minutes later, the first sheriff arrives. Scoutmaster gives the GPS coordinates to the sheriff for the helicopter, and I lead the sheriff back to the oasis.
Again, 30 minutes up coyote canyon.
By the time we get there, 2 helicopters are on the scene to help the scout out of the situation.
We watched the rest of the recovery, but weren’t able to help much. The accident happened at 11:15, and the kid was finally flying away at 2:30.
We ended our day with a run up Calcite mine.
Lessons Learned:
• Always have GPS coordinates of your location
• Have a way to contact emergency services
• Ham radios don’t always work (the one we had couldn’t contact emergency services)
i am glad that the hams on our site are already in the process of figuring out our emergency communications protocol, which includes researching repeaters in the various areas we wheel. this will complement our recovery and first aid strategy to help provide us with peace of mind on the trails.
Views: 15
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by opg4759 on
-
Damn.
The lessons learned there are important.
Another good thing to add to the lessons learned is having a good Topo Map for the area as well to be able to mark where the incident is. Incase GPS fails for some reason, bad coverage, low or dead batteries.
a SPOT device might have been useful. I know I've been looking at getting one for going into the back country.
I've been thinking about changing up my GPS unit to the new Delorme PN-60 that communicates with SPOT.
-
Permalink Reply by GRM on
-
My problem with the SPOT is: How do you know that emergency services received your message? Even if we had one, we would have had to drive to the road to get cell signal.
A friend of mine made a facetious joke about a flare gun... but really... its not a bad idea.
-
Permalink Reply by pkelly72 on
-
Leave the flare gun at home. The chance of starting fires is to great depending on the season.
-
-
Granted SPOT is one way. However it doesn't rely on the cell network. As long as your in a overhead clear area you should be able to hit one of the globalstar satellites.
-
Permalink Reply by Bz on
-
WOW!! Nice Job Garrett!! CPR and First Aid for the 1st responder training are great classes that can be done in 2-3 weekends. Skills that I NEVER want to use, be safe Y'all!
-
Permalink Reply by caddo on
-
The problem with SPOT (as a long time SPOT user) is it's tied to a person and when you hit that 911 button you are not able to communicate what your needs/want are. They are going to assume you are in trouble at wherever you transmit the signal from. My understanding of the SPOT 911 service (I've never used it, probably a good thing) is when the call center got your 911 it will try to call your emergency contact (who hopefully knows you are out there somewhere) to verify that it is indeed an emergency and then they will attempt to contact emergency service of the area you transmit from, passing along any medical notes you put in your profile. I can see it will be a bit confusing if a SPOT was used in this situation, and probably ending up taking roughly the same amount of time handling it. The upside is someone probably doesnt have to drive the whole way multiple times.
Still, it is probably a cheap alternative to (owning) a sat phone and the web tracking capability is pretty neat..
-
Permalink Reply by Sonof40 on
-
I agree with caddo. But the important thing is that help could have been dispatch to the spot of the SPOT much faster, which is the priority. My problem, if it were my SPOT, would be the liability for the cost if I didn't have the insurance. And even if I did, whom would it be covering? The cost could be 6 figures.
-
-
That's a good question. I'm sure if it were your spot and your incident your insurance would cover you..well they would cover some things and then deny coverage on the really expensive stuff and come up with some weak excuses.
If it were your spot and someone else was injured and you were being a "good samaritan" you would not be charged at least not in this state.
Communications is the key to any incident. The spot device is just another useful tool to put in your kit.
-
-
The search and rescue insurance option for SPOT covers you and only you. (It's been awhile since I read the contract, but I recall it being very specific about coverage, and only covering you if you are alive... ). That said I dont think they will turn away rescuing others at the site but I'd imagine the cost would be just as if the other party called for rescue..
-
-
unless you have specific insurance you are going to pay for search and rescue and/or extraction if required, whether or not you have SPOT, a satellite phone, Ham Radio, or cell phone.
I look at it as what ever gets help there fastest in a life and death situation is all I would care about.
If you go back to this specific incident a broken femur is a very serious injury that puts you at risk for tearing open the femoral artery. Extraction by non-trained personal could lead to complications and or death.
-
Permalink Reply by Swingshiftworker on
-
Off road or not, I now always carry my Iridium Sat phone to use when no cell coverage is available and an ACR 406 GPS PLB (personal locator beacon), which IMHO is better than SPOT because: 1) its not proprietary, 2) there are no monthly or other service charges, 3) gobal sat coverage is better and 4)) it uses NOAA (not a private company) to contact emergency rescue services where ever you are when you are in REAL "life and death" trouble.
Here's the link to my report about decision to purchase them: http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forums/expedition-specific-equipment....
Badge
NorCal FJ Twitter Feed
The NorCal FJ Shop
NorCal FJ Network Status
© 2024 Created by NorCal FJs.
Powered by
