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Sat. Jun 26, 2004 10:52 am
Fred Wilson (& Naiomi Gray)
Perhaps better titled - "What some people will do for a midnight
campfire under a starlite night!"
Naiomi Gray was working a good thermal over the "house" over the
waterfall 4.3 km south of Mara launch when she got nailed by unexpected
sink at 3:30 PM. This was a girl that did EVERYTHING right from
that point on. (See her story next post.) She picked a safe spot
in dense forest and landed in a samll grove of 3 meter fir trees.
She radio'd that she was A-OK and was out of the glider walking
on the ground but that the glider was up a tree. Alex scratched
as long as he could doing Radio Relay to me, enough to get a pretty
good fix on her position, although the glider was completely hidden
in the dense forest. We got her GPS coordinates and (as it turned
out incorrect) altitude and told her to STAY PUT. Which she did.
She had landed way east of the Mara Foodliner (Hunter's Range.)
4.3 km., 358° to launch. Real, real tiger country. Fred here drove
down to the best available cell spot and put Search and Rescue on
Standby. I then carried on down and met Emil Segeren (retired pilot)
who lives 1.2 Km up the Mara-Skyline-Ashton Creek Rd., his topo
maps, chainsaw and headed down to the Mara Foodliner to meet the
police. Tom Pierces spare GPS was borrowed (and later his radio!
Thanks!)
The Telus Operator gave me a series of free calls from the pay phone
to Naiomi on her cell. We learned that she had a sore shoulder after
landing hard on her side and that she had managed to get the glider
out of the trees but was unable to break it down due to the dense
bush and sore shoulder. We got her to move to a nearby high point
(plagued with mosquitos) with better cell reception, had her stay
put there and told her to use her harness as a sleeping bag and
her reserve parachute as a tent / mosquito net (spread it out in
all four directions, its an easy-to-find in the bush.) She did not
have any matches and was afraid of starting a forest fire anyhow.
To this S&R later said: "If you want to be found fast... that's
the ticket!" (-: Since her cell batteries were running low, she
was told to turn off her cell and then turn it on every hour on
the hour for five minutes.
Since we had a fix on her location and knew we could get very close
to her by 4X4 on known roads we sat down for a long talk with the
RCMP. We decided to ask the Vernon Search and Rescue if they would
like to come to our assistance and use the opportunity to have a
Practice Session. 23 Vernon volunteers joined in as it was now 5
PM.
Emil and I got permission to get going up the 7km road and log deadfall
off the road. Part way up we ran into another Ace in terms of deep
woods knowledge in the area - Chuck (Charles) Arnold (a local RC
pilot) on his dirt bike. We headed up the road to the nearest GPS
point at the altitude given. One look at the GPS and we knew the
altitude was wrong by a couple of thousand feet, so up we went.
Brutal road. Real tiger country. My poor old landcruiser earned
its reputation from that point on. Major damage but it got us to
within 800 meters of her location, right near the top of Burton
Creek and got the road open for S&R. (Real tiger country you
ask? S&R later followed us in on a jacked up 4X4 and wanted
to ditch the truck half way up in favour of ATV'ing in!)
Chuck grabbed my GPS at the top 6000' clearcut and roared off on
his motorcycle into the indescribably dense bush... I'm a telling
you it was like watching the scene in Star Wars. This guys in-depth
knowledge and comfort level in that jungle was right impressive.
He made several attempts to find direct routes to her but she was
on the other (S) side of the steep ravine, so he looped east and
went around the ravine and surprize surprize found a new extension
to the Hunter-Burton Rd on the top of the mountain and got within
200 yards of her last know position. He then walked into the bush
using the GPS and stood smack on the spot where her GPS said she
had gone down. He then started and extensive grid search of the
area with no success. (See why below.)
While Chuck made this attempt, we drove down to the cell reception
spot near the bottom of the mountain where we met S&R and lead
them back in to Chuck's jump off spot. Chuck arrived back shortly
after that, reporting that he had driven on good roads (on the other
side of the forested area) to within a couple of hundred yards of
her. However, in the meantime the main S&R team had gone up
a likely road to within 2 km of her location. Due to bad cell /
radio coverage up top where we were, we did not find this out until
they were well into one hour of hiking along the steep ravine. Since
it was now dusk:
- and venturing into the dense forest at that time of night
was not an intelligent choice
- we knew we could drive down quickly and likely find her
fairly quickly up the Hunter-Burton Rd, and thereby be able
to rescue her
and her glider in one shot. (The best laid plans of mice
and men.... (-; )
- Streamers of Toilet paper make a great, highly visible
trail for night time S&R but we had no idea if our (new)
flashlight batteries would hold out long enough.
The S&R command post ordered us down to base camp and there
was no argument from us. If we had only had another 1/2 hour of
daylight, we could have saved her an entire night in the bush, but
there was no human alive that could have packed her glider back
along Chuck's trail. So this was the point whre the "practice" session
turned into the real meal deal.
It was too late to stop the other S&R ground crew, especially
since we thought they were getting close... Little did we know the
sort of terrain they were just about to encouter! The first hour
before dusk, they had covered 700m in 1 hour. Dusk hit just when
they ran into a very steep area of the ravine and a nasty cliff
section. This 15 "man" ground team took 7 hours to cover 2 km to
reach her. At one point it took them 1 hour to go 200m. You can
just picture them ... Piton's into rock, grapples into tree trunks,
hacking bushes, branches, tossing debris - moving sideways across
the embankment. packing full rescue gear, First Aid and a basket
stretcher. Quote " It was worse than anything you could imagine
in the Amazon jungle." The tree's were shoulder width apart. The
forest was so dense that when one four man team set off a "Bear
Bomb" (Percussion grenade) one of their own team members did not
hear it! Like I said: "Tiger country."
Naiomi was now complaining of a sore and swollen leg. We
talked to the ground crew, who reported they were approaching
terminal
exhaustion and that carrying Naiomi back out the same route
for 7 hours was a not not not a viable option. At this
point Comox
Air Force Base CASARA (Canadian Search and Rescue) was
put on standby
with the big boy helicopters. As the first signs of daylight
began to appear, S&R made the decision to use the helicopter (and
all the Armed Forces considerable training) if and when necessary
to pull the entire 16 "man" group out.
Anyhow Emil and I headed down to base camp and analysed
road maps and aerial photographs used at the onset of the
search.
It was obvious
to us that Burton Rd continued on past where the road maps
and photos showed. With a bit of convincing we got our
S&R
team to head up the main Burton Rd. and guided them through
the maze
of side
roads into location only a few hundred meters from where
we thought she was, just half an hour after the ground
team
had reached her.
In the meantime, the poor exausted ground team started a
campfire under the clear starlite night, made tea for Naiomi
and fed
her to try recover her strength. They gave her a complete
medical once over and reported a suspected hairline fracture
to her
leg.
They
also used the time to cut down the larger trees to make
it easier for us to later recover the glider.
As soon as the truck crew arrived they let off a signal
flare (visible even at base camp) and the response from
the deep
woods said "Not
so loud. We can hear you talk." Imagine having slogged through
bush that dense in the dead of a moonless night only to
find you end
up 200 m from a main logging road! I feel sorry for the
team but do I ever admire their courage, strength, dedication
and
tenacity.
Naiomi went down at 3:30 PM and was found at 4:30 AM.
My landcruiser has the best ride on rough roads, so I signed
the vehicle over to S&R to drive her and a few of the
more bruised crew members down to base. The team then started
slashing
a walking
trail through the bush to the vehicle position and once
done, quickly got her out to the road. From there it was
a simple
matter of retracing
our trail back to the Mara Foodliner base camp. Naiomi refused
an Ambulance ride as she was ambulatory and I drove her
into the hospital
for a checkup arriving at 7:00AM.
ASIDE:
Search and Rescue in Canada is done by volunteers. Even so, it may
come as a surprize to you to learn that 4 of the ground crew had
to be brought down straight away at 5 AM because they had to be
at work at 7:00 AM!!! (No reprieve for volunteer activities... even
one so grueling as this.)
While Naiomi was in Emergency, I went down and fixed a
flat tire I had aquired on the adventure and replaced the
broken
studs my
rims now sported. (Thanks to Kal Tire for the freebee!)
Nothing to do about my rear bumper than cry! (-; I picked
her up at
8:30 AM and drove directly to the next days pilot meeting.
We walked
in to an explosion of applause. Really heart warming. Naiomi
was too exhausted to tell her story till the next day.
So I spoke
up, saying "This is a girl who did EVERYTHING right" and
proceeded to tell the story of the heroic Search and Rescue
Team. If
Naiomi had
moved substantially out of location she likely would never
have been found. As it was, at one point she heard wildlife
walking
through the bush. Not a pleasant experience being totally
alone and dealing
with the unknown in the dead of night in the deepest of
woods.
Naiomi's true courage and stamina then came to the forefront when
she insisted on returning to Mara for the day to watch the next
round fly.
After launch I transferred Safety to Cas Wolen (Thanks Cas!!!)
and headed up to bush retrieve with a three "man" team Thanks
Ross, Christine and Ian! After a short period of bush whacking
the team
managed to break the glider down (one downtube crumpled
and a leading edge toasted on landing) and shortly thereafter
we drove
down to
find a roast beef dinner with beverages waiting for us at
Emil's. Christine made my day by offering to drive us home
to Vernon...
after 36 hours with no sleep and feet torn to ribbons by
slogging
around in that God forbidding bush... I was in no shape
to drive. Much appreciated Christine! The powers that be
sure
showed you
they owed you one the next couple of days... eh? (Highest
altitude gain
and longest XC flight!)
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