Women found alive after surviving 49 days

Discussion in 'General Survival and Preparedness' started by Catullus, May 9, 2011.


  1. Catullus

    Catullus Monkey+++

  2. Tikka

    Tikka Monkey+++

    It also showed keeping water and something to eat in a vehicle isn't a bad idea.
     
  3. Brokor

    Brokor Live Free or Cry Moderator Site Supporter+++ Founding Member

    Your title made me believe there were a group of women, but in reality it was only one woman. The English language is quite complicated, I know. ;)

    Good survival story to tell the grand kids.
     
  4. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    Very gutsy Lady.... I just hope her husband, can be found. I suspect that he will turn out not to be alive, but you just never know. That area is about as far out in the FlatLand Bush as one can find, so if I were traveling thru that country, I would be treating it like I would, traveling in my neighborhood. Backups, for Backups, and Comm Gear, for emergencies. You just can't get much farther out than she was, in the lower 48..... If you leave the pavement, you need to treat the world with a different set of rules.... ..... YMMV.....
     
  5. Catullus

    Catullus Monkey+++

    Cut me some slack on my grammar Brokor! My wife is currently in labor and we are having this baby at home.

    Luckily they haven't made bad grammar illegal...yet [beer]
     
  6. Brokor

    Brokor Live Free or Cry Moderator Site Supporter+++ Founding Member

    lol, it is contagious on the web. ;) And congratulations! [beer]
     
  7. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    Congrats for Momma, and pray everything goes well for you folks... We will expect Pictures.... after the Blessed Event.... and is your job, Boiling Water?
     
  8. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    They were near our hunting area for Antelope.
    Even the slightest rain can make it almost impossible to move on those dirt roads with big mudder tires. My guess they were in the Humboldt Nat forest area and wild horse reservoir trying to short cut to Elko then to Vegas... bad move. this time of year, pain in the arse in summer. also if he tried getting in a hot spring in that area to warm up, he may have cooked in one, they burp some killing hot water at times, if he did that he may never be found.
     
  9. Catullus

    Catullus Monkey+++

    Thanks BTPost. We probably still have a day or two left. She really is in pre-labor...she is a Nurse-Midwife by profession so I feel pretty safe. We have another midwife and a few RN's who will come for the actual birth!

    My official job is "water boiler" and " wood cutter!"
     
  10. Witch Doctor 01

    Witch Doctor 01 Mojo Maker

    Dop we need to start a new thread on which knife do you prefer to cut an umbilical cord with?

    Congrats man.... new kid look at it as a good reason to buy another shotgun... i mean if it's a girl you will need it... and if it's a boy well he'll need something to hunt with...;) (just kidding girls i know she will need a shotgun anyhow....)
     
  11. Catullus

    Catullus Monkey+++

    That would be an interesting thread indeed!
     
  12. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    Kind of wish we lived closer, My wife is an RN with 30 years of High Risk Labor and Delivery expertise. She just finished a 8 week mission with "Doctors without Boarders" teaching NPR, all across Canada, and a rotation doing Deliveries in clinics. She had a great time, and I survived, on my own, as well.
     
  13. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    GPS was involved in this incident....

    Canadian couple's missteps shock Nev. town locals
    By BRIAN SKOLOFF and JOHN MILLER, Associated Press – Wed May 11, 9:13 am ET

    MOUNTAIN CITY, Nev. – At about 6,000 feet in a narrow valley surrounded by bulbous, snowcapped mountains, this tiny northeastern Nevada town sits roughly two hours from anywhere, in the middle of nowhere.
    It's that remoteness and grandeur that apparently drew Rita and Albert Chretien to the area around Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest as they made their way from Canada to Las Vegas. Albert Chretien has been missing in the wilderness since late March after the couple, guided by a new GPS, ventured off the highway onto muddy, washed-out forest service roads winding deep into the high country.
    Rita Chretien was found Friday by a trio of hunters after spending seven weeks in the couple's van stuck in mud, surviving off trail mix, hard candy and water from a nearby stream. Her husband set out on foot to find help, hoping to make it to Mountain City. He hasn't been seen since.
    Rita Chretien spent a few days in an Idaho hospital and was sent home with her family on Tuesday for treatment back in British Columbia.
    "Them mountains are nasty, some of the gnarliest mountains you ever seen," said Bill Landon, one of only about 20 year-round residents in town. "The mud up there is something terrible. You sink up to your knees in it. When it rains back there, those roads turn to plum mush."
    Locals such as Landon, who know these mountains well and know they can swallow a man without a trace, don't even venture into the backcountry in winter, which can sometimes last well into April, even May. Tourists in these parts are a rarity until the summer sun dries the earth.
    It's hard to imagine how anyone, let alone outsiders, would attempt the off-road crossing the Chretiens tried, said Mel Basanez, a 74-year-old retired grocery store owner who's lived here most of his life.
    "I can't imagine getting off the highway in this country at that time of year, even this time of year," Basanez balked, looking up at the peaks that disappear into the gray clouds. "The minute the guy got off the highway, he should have realized he's in trouble. Snow, mud, water, everything up there. It's no place to be. It's amazing she survived."
    While the search continues for Albert Chretien over miles of muck, snow drifts and washed out roads, Basanez is fearful that the landscape was too treacherous for him to survive.
    "Couple of nights out there, 10 below zero, that old boy couldn't have made it," Basanez said. "Then you get the wind and the snow. How you gonna survive that? I know these mountains."
    The Chretiens were last seen on surveillance video March 19 while stopping for gas in Oregon. It's not clear where they traveled next or what route they took into the spider web of forest roads that wind across the mountains.
    The couple from Penticton, British Columbia, is believed to have turned their 2000 Chevrolet van, equipped only with two-wheel drive, off a highway somewhere in southern Idaho or northeastern Nevada near Mountain City looking for a shortcut to Jackpot, a stop in Nevada on their way to a Las Vegas trade show.
    "The roads up there are all dirt roads, basically ATV trails. Water is running real high right now because of snow melt," said Sgt. Kevin McKinney of the Elko County Sheriff's Department, which is leading the search. "Many of the roads are just washed out, covered from rock slides, and there are deep pockets of drifting snow."
    McKinney said the Chretiens used their new GPS device to find the shortest route to Jackpot, nestled in Nevada's northeastern corner. If they had typed in the town's name into their GPS from anywhere in the area, the shortest route would have led them off-highway and along possibly a half-dozen different forest service roads only named with numbers. They apparently followed the route into the mountains without question.
    "I'm no expert on GPS devices and how they work, but if you plug in for the shortest distance to any location, it'll give you that, but that's not always the best way to go," McKinney said of the remote, rugged terrain.
    They could have stayed on paved highways, driven south to Elko, Nev., about 85 miles from Mountain City, then east on Interstate 80 and north to Jackpot. Or they could have headed north on well-marked, maintained roads, and traveled through Idaho to their destination. But they chose to go off-road, for whatever reason.
    The couple's pastor in Canada said Albert Chretien had just recently bought the GPS unit.
    "They planned to use it basically to get around Las Vegas," said Rev. Neil Allenbrand of the Church of the Nazarene, who described Albert Chretien, the owner of an excavating business, as "a bit of an adventurer at times."
    Blindly following GPS units has led people astray in the past and has put them in precarious, life-threatening situations.
    In December 2009, a Nevada couple got stranded for three days in the Oregon desert after they followed directions from their navigation device. Later that month, an Oregon couple spent about 12 hours stranded in the Northwest's Cascade Mountains with their 11-month-old daughter.
    Mike Ferguson, a Boise author of the backcountry guidebook "GPS Land Navigation," said many inexperienced users can be led astray by putting too much trust in the devices as they seek out the shortest routes, not considering the terrain they might be facing.
    "Unless you're prepared for it, with a four-wheel drive, or maybe a snow machine in winter, when it sends you off into remote terrain, it can surely get you into big trouble," Ferguson said.
    In the end, Rita Chretien was found by a group of hunters on ATVs who themselves had made a wrong turn on the confusing patchwork of roads. It saved her life. Her husband's wrong turn may have cost him his.
    ___
    Associated Press writer Todd Dvorak in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.
     
  14. VHestin

    VHestin Farm Chick

    Congrats Catullus!
     
  15. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    Yup thats where I thought they would be, too bad thats some ruff country, not too far from Claud Dalles's old stomping grounds.
     
  16. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    Yep, QS, It is just to easy to leave the "thinking" to the machine, and let it lead you right down the Garden Path, to your Worst Nightmare. Same thing happened to that Young Couple in southwest Oregon, a few years back. They at least, had some very Tech Savvy friends, that went looking for them, by tracking their Cellphone, and that brought the Searchers into the General Area. This time there was nobody even looking, and the finders just stumbled across the lady. I very much believe that this will NOT be the last time this happens, and this will not be the last GPS directed incident, we will hear about.
     
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