The vast majority of people who die in the wilderness die waiting and hoping for rescue.  

Rescue if a fine thing, a good thing but what its not is something you can depend on.  Three weeks in a straight line, any straight line, a person can cross the entire state of Maine.  The trick is that straight line and if you are incapable of that, you went into the wilderness totally unpreparred.  Now entire threads are dedicated to how to do that straight line but for now let's just say knowledge is critical.  The old schools use to say "All water moves to the oceans, follow the water."  What that means to rescue is depend on signaling methods that work on the move, mirrors, whistles, etc.  

I do not wonder what I would do.  I've been lost many times, more times than I can count. I've never been rescued.  Been more than a few times, it damn sure would have been nice.  It starts with an attitude.  You aren't lost, you know right where you are, its you don't know how to get where you are going.   The keyword is going.  Once you stop, that's it, you just gave up any control you have over the situation.  Hugging trees is for kids and amber alerts.  Parents are never far from kids.  Rescues are not magic.  They have limitations and the biggest is where to start.  

I live on the southern end of the Applachian Train is actually some of the worst terrain through national park and national forest so largest areas of wilderness.  What I can tell you is most people that have to be rescued, by far, misjudge the weather.  Second is those who think all they have to do is follow the path.  Injury is actually way down on the list.  What all those lost that are rescued had in common is they had a plan, somebody knew where they were suppose to be, and they didn't check in.  This is basic woods 101 stuff.  Hell, when I ride my motorcycle in the mountains, I do the same thing.  You can be 10' from the road and they aren't going to find you.  (We had a guy die like that here just last year.  Feet from the road on a wrecked bike, he wasn't found for days (dead as a door nail).  Nobody was looking for him until someone stumbled over his body.  

A big problem we have these days is a dependence on government to rescue us and its just not in the woods either.  It was no surprise to me what my two great-nephews did one time.  

"Tj Story Time"  911 Help.

My niece was a welfare mom.  She spent much of her life totally dependent on the government for her survival.  This entitlement/dependence mentality she totally passed down to her kids.  What outdoors experience they had they actually got from me but living 4.5 hours away and no real priority on my nieces part, was very little.  Many of the guys here on the forum met them.  I took them to one of our ATV camps one year.  They live in the house, I grew up in.  The house is in the city on a wooded hill.  Either side of the hill is a street and houses.  

One day, they decided to go into the woods (a woods btw I almost lived in as a kid).  They got lost so they sat down and called 911.  The police searched the woods, two cops actually, and found rescued them.  Here's the catch.  All they had to was walk downhill ANYWHERE they were and 100' later, they would have been on the streets.  They only needed two cops because it is a very small wood.  

Now this is a funny story involving two idiot kids but the moral of the story runs deep.  Depending on someone else for your survival is like buying into the anti-gun argument.  Time is always a factor and guess wrong, you are dead.

This is why we have this forum.  Its so we can learn because what kills us most of the time ultimately is a lack of knowledge and bad decisions.

Tj