Someone's Lucky Day

[Extreme]

I for one have always had in the back of my mind an emergency situation where a GMRS radio would save the day.  But, as we all know, traffic is slim and folks monitoring for emergency calls is minimal.

So, my Offroad club does volunteer/pro-Bono vehicle recoveries.  Got contacted by a guy who was stuck at 8500' but lucky enough to have cell phone coverage due to the proximity of a large but remote mine, end of the road, 50+ miles off pavement.  We got him recovered after a 2 hour drive to get to him 5 miles off the main dirt road.  But that's not the story.

The story is: while in route to recover #1 we're chatting on Ch. 16 truck to truck (my Kenwood 8180 and 2 of my 905G I hand out to my compatriots).  We're many miles from anywhere gabbing away on the trip when I hear an unfamiliar voice.  I ask who it is, he says his name and tells me they've slid a Toyota Sequoia off the road and need help.  I asked how he got us and he said he put his Baofeng HT on scan and heard us chatting.  Told him we'd get him on the way out from #1.  This Toyota was at the top of the Ruby Mountains, Harrison Pass at close to 10k feet elevation, 30 miles of dirt then 6.5mi in,  4wd/Low Range for 6.5mi.  They'd walked out 8 miles from their rig to their camp (muzzle loader deer hunt).

Without giving you all the details of the recovery (didn't get it done last night with 3 capable Jeeps with winches and recovery gear in darkness; he's since hired a pro and they're in route as I write).  Anyway, just a little story on how screwed these guys would have been and how lucky they are to have had a radio and someone in range.  I suggested they hit the slots; even tho' their luck was bad getting stuck, they got good luck just getting out of there.  No telling how long they'd been there with no comms.  They spent the night in a local motel since the Toy is there only rig.

[MSN]

Extreme.... What a great story! The outcome of this is that everyone involved has a deeper respect for radio communications. You never know when a situation may crop up that monitoring at the right time or deciding to turn your radio on and calling for help might make a difference in someones emergency. It was possibly lucky that Extreme and his group was on simplex so when the guy scanned for activity, he was able to make contact without needing to program his radio with an offset or encode to hit a repeater.

 

Mike WØMSN / WRCJ755

 

[mbrun]

Agree. Very cool story.


Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM