Got a call last night that my brother (20 years old) was camping in Fall Creek Falls with my cousin & their girlfriends, when leaving the others left first, with him right behind (supposedly). They get to the vehicles and wait, he doesn't show up for an hour (Its dark by now) so they call the park rangers, they go looking but can't find them & decide to wait till morning. We had massive storms here & my brother was missing, nnedless to say I got NO sleep. Got a call this morning that they found him & he's ok, kinda scraggly but ok. Turns out he had no knife, no covering (tarp, plastic sheet, etc.) no compass, no food or water, no flashlight.... just his bic lighter (he smokes).

What the hell is wrong woith him! I gotta teach him a few things, I know it was only overnight but it could esily have turned into several days.

What would you guys do here? I've already planned on making him a small survival tin to carry around, what else?

People always look sideways at me when I mention survival skills/equipment/preparedness, they always laugh until they finally need it then who do they call?

Glad it all worked out for you and him.

Did he at least make a fire with his lighter or did he shiver all night long?

I NEVER travel anywhere off the beaten path without basic signal gear (mirror, strobe, whistle) a compass (usually a GPS as well), some hi-energy bars, multi-tool, water, a basic first aid kit and space blanket.

A 1qt canteen and a small butt-pack of stuff can keep you going for a couple of days (and longer in extremis).

I'm glad your bro is OK and I'm positive you'll be showing him the error of his ways real soon now.

We have an area in our county called "World's Edge." It's pretty much straight up & down, with a lot of cliffs, several waterfalls, and a very narrow & fast stretch of whitewater. We average having to search for lost hikers/hunters/fishermen 4 or 5 times a year. We average one fatality a year from people walking out onto waterfalls and being swept over the falls.

The one common factor in all of these situations is that the victim did not have much, if any, respect for nature. People tend to think nature is like watching television, and that everything will work out OK for them, even if they blunder out alone, with no survival gear and no preparation. We had to find a Captain from the La. State Police several years ago. He might have been at home in the bayou, but he was totally lost in the mountains. He admitted that he didn't think anything could happen to him that he couldn't handle. After almost falling off several cliffs, he finally spent the night sitting under a tree waiting for daylight. He had no flashlight, no matches, no maps, no compass, etc.

Survival equipment is great, but the first step is to recognize that the great outdoors is not always user friendly, and it can & will kill you if you don't understand & respect it. Your brother is lucky. He was uncomfortable & probably scared for a night, but he made it. He should learn a valuable lesson from this experience & be better prepared the next time he goes out. Unless he's lucky enought to make a living in Vegas playing roulette, he better rely on preparation & skill next time......

Glad he made it out safely. With the weather we have had in this area for the last few days, it could have turned out otherwise.

I'm happy for you that things worked out this time..

You're absolutely right about being prepared !


however...

gee thanks to the "friends" for continuosly monitoring each other... and wth, how did your bro let them leave him behind w/o saying anything?

Obviously you need to give him a crash course on SHTFs

Nope, he he was in the middle of a HUGE thunderstorm. In case you haven't heard we've been getting tornadoes & such here for a couple days, several people have died even. So he had no wood (and wouldn't know how to find dry wood anyway). He didn't pull down branches for any semi-shelter, didn't find an overhang, just huddled up with his girlfriend & shivered all nite.

I bet he takes more than a lighter and a pack of smokes the next time.

I was wondering that too, I'm gonna have a talk with my cousin about that. If it was just an hour later he could have just walked back to the camp site to do his own search, he had all the gear after all.

Thats another problem with these kids, they think camping gear mean an inflatable mattress. I never go camping without at least a survival kit of some sort, plus a good knife, & first aid kit and a sidearm, not counting water & food. I do need to get some flares & a strobe/beacon though.

You're damned skippy he will! I'm gonna give him at least a good lecture about this, he's gotta learn better.

Glad to hear things worked out good for your bro.

I hope you give him a good [stick]ing and knock some sense into him!

Hell, he didn't even have a pocketknife? What would he have done if he was trapped under a boulder - he'd have to gnaw off his own arm? [;D]
Seriously though, I hope he sees this as one HELL of a learning experience!

Sounds like he survived just fine with no training and a Bic lighter.[:P]

Heh...

Last time I went camping we had a guy who was miserable the whole time because he was ill prepaired... He bought a 2nd hand backpack (blaze orange, looked like it was from the 70's), and wore basketball shoes on a 25mi backpack camping trip. Blisters and a broken pack later, he was close to tears wanting to go home...

I goofed a little too, (should have worn combat boots and brought a decent bolt action (at that time I didn't have a gun to my name). It was too muddy for my shoes, and we got bear raided despite using the bear-pole for our food & smelly stuff, and picking up trash. Learned my lesson, as my K98 and combat boots will accompany me next time...

Sumo2000:

Really glad things worked out for your brother – give him an extra thump on the head for all of us!!  [:D]

That says it all!!

We’ve got a stretch of the Potomac River here near DC that regularly swallows up boaters and hikers and spits out dead bodies.  This just happened again last weekend to a 12-year-old girl who was out boating with her dad with no lifejacket on!!

For all the warm and fuzzy talk about how wonderful “Mother Nature” is, give her half a chance and she will reach out and kill you!!

Strart dredging the lakes in the vicinity.

 Get him a GPS and teach him to mark the truck before ditty bopping around. Hell, some people loose their cars downtown. He may be a little more receptive to your ideas after that night in the woods.

Cell phone would have worked wonders too.

Even if I just go to state park to go for a small hike i atleast carry a daypack with a map , compass,glock,,and other goodies...you just never know.....

Glad he is alright....teach him a few when u get the chance...

Glad everyone is alright, now kick him in the butt, then give him a hug.

Everyone should sit out in a storm without shelter sometime. It's actually a pretty awesome experience after you can get past the emotional part.

Glad your brother is okay.

His getting lost wouldn't be drug of alcohol related would it? Lots of dumbs--t things happen to impared people. Time to dry out.

Sumo2000 >  [slap] < Brother


Glad he's ok.

Maybe he'll get some sense when he realizes he also exposed his girlfriend to some pretty nasty stuff.  Nice.


BTW, did this trip start out with the phrase, "Here, hold my beer and watch this?   [;D]

Yeah, that could never happen, here...  we're all brothers, right?

Thanks to all for the concern, I've just found out a bit more (I didn't get to see him till today). No alcohol was involved, in short, he's terrible with direction & doesn't know those woods anyway, he took a wrong turn. My cousin thought he had gone into the woods to diddle his girlfriend (he had apparently been doing that all weekend) so gave him some time to "finish his stuff". Unfortunately, it was almost dark, when it got dark & they weren't back, my cousin was going to go looking for them, except that the flashlights were locked in my brothers car and of course the keys were with my brother. With the storm there was only a couple feet visibility so he called the rangers.

Also turns out that while he wasn't very well prepared, he did keep his cool & did his best to find a safe spot/stay warm till morning. His girlfriend was freaked out so he got her calmed down & kept things together. He got them to some higher ground & he DID manage a fire apparently, though it only lasted a few minutes (I just found out about that one) but he got some rocks near it to warm them up then spread those & the dirt out to make a warm spot for the two of them (it got very cold, they apparently got near hypothermia).

After hearing his side I'm not so pissed at him, he should have had more on him but mentally he did pretty well, kept them both calm & got them both out. Overall I'd say he did pretty well considering.