Have you ever rescued anyone?

I'm pretty sure I rescued a family of hikers from either a much longer hike than they anticipated, or an unplanned night in the woods.

I was southbound on the Garfield Ridge trail earlier this summer, and was nearing the top of North Lafayette. A family passed me going northbound, with the dad trailing behind. I said hello to everybody as they passed, and when they were just a bit past me the dad called back and asked me the fastest way to get back to Lafayette Place Campground. I pulled out my map and got them oriented.

Since they didn't look like they were prepared for a pemi loop , I told him they could go down the Skookumchuck, but that it was a long walk back on the bike path to Lafayette Place from the trailhead, or they could head back up Lafayette and head down Greenleaf and the Old Bridle Path.

They chose to head back up Lafayette and down Greenleaf/OBP.

Gave a pair of gloves to a young hiker who had none in a surprise October snowstorm.
Gave away a pair of socks as "emergency mittens "to a hiker with no gloves.

Came across a hiker who had dislocated a finger with an ice axe loop.Nasty-looked like he had a thumb at each end of his hand! We taped it up to immobilize it and got his hand into a mitten with a sling. Then we loaded himup with Tylenol,and helped him get down some steep icy sections.

About 10 years, I had just finished hiking Cannon from Lafayette to the ski area parking lot, and was walking down the bike path and a NH State Trooper told me to follow a herd path in and meet up with some SAR people to help with an injured person. A rock climber fell and wasn't wearing a helmet and cracked his head pretty good. About 8 people carried the litter out, it was pretty intense. Once in the parking lot, the SAR's ran off to get someone off of Eagle Cliff.

A few years ago a group of us rescued a beagle named Buddy on a winter "run" thru knee- and thigh-deep snow on the southern portion of the Long Trail. We had stopped to regroup when we heard a strange howling sound a couple hundred feet away. One of the guys investigated and returned carrying the starving dog. We fed him ClifBars and took turns carrying him out, 7 or 8 miles to the next road. (We didn't do any more running that day!) The pooch was wearing a tag with a phone number. Apparently Buddy and his sibling had gone off chasing a moose just before a big snowstorm hit a few weeks earlier, and they became disoriented in all the snow. The other dog was never found. The owner was overjoyed to be reuinited with Buddy and bought us a few rounds at a bar in North Adams that night.

Bobby said:

About 10 years, I had just finished hiking Cannon from Lafayette to the ski area parking lot, and was walking down the bike path and a NH State Trooper told me to follow a herd path in and meet up with some SAR people to help with an injured person. A rock climber fell and wasn't wearing a helmet and cracked his head pretty good. About 8 people carried the litter out, it was pretty intense. Once in the parking lot, the SAR's ran off to get someone off of Eagle Cliff.

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Don't take this the wrong way because I too would have helped. I'm just curious what would have happened if you declined. Can the trooper legally press you into service?

I didn't consider not helping out, but I don't know if the Trooper could have forced me to help. Sometimes, a mean look will make people do things they really don't want to

I just called my sister who is an attorney for the Department of Public Safety in CT and she assures me there is no law at least in CT forcing you to help. She was, however, surprised that a trooper asked a “civilian” non-SAR person to help. I assume it was because 8 people is not enough to carry a litter for any distance. Once again, I would have gladly helped I was just quibbling over the wording.

Bobby said:

Sometimes, a mean look will make people do things they really don't want to

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Here I go again. Are you saying he gave you a mean look as he told you to help?

a couple of years ago i found some hikers looking for their car at the lot on the diamond knotch side of hunter mountain.....only problem was they parked on 214 and it was raining and getting dark out so we gave them a lift.
that winter a hunter gave me a lift into town after i got shin splints backpacking......what comes around goes around!!!

MadRiver said:

Here I go again. Are you saying he gave you a mean look as he told you to help?

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As I tell my kids, oh maybe a thousand times a day, "ask nicely, say please!" will get you much further.

Giving orders is part of the culture and mentality of the state troopers.

What I want to know is did he help at all?

Tim

MadRiver said:

Here I go again. Are you saying he gave you a mean look as he told you to help?

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Maybe he had "Cop" radar and mistakenly thought he was NH State Trooper and not Boston.

Brian

P.S. I once had to save my sister and myself from a horrible, long haired drunk man with an evil black dog. It was dicey for a while, but I managed to free us from his grungy grip.

As some of you can readily guess, I like to quibble on wording. I’ve looked at several statutes that cover giving aid, but they all address the issue “after” you participate. I cannot find anything that covers the “compelling” aspect of the act.

charlos said:

that winter a hunter gave me a lift into town after i got shin splints backpacking......what comes around goes around!!!

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Boy, ain't that the truth -

Many years ago I did Isolation via the Davis Path from US302 and came out Rocky Branch onto NH16. I hitched a ride with a German couple who were going to dinner in Jackson. Giving me a lift all the way back to the TH on US302 was a long way out of their way, but I couldn't talk them out of it. As I was pulling out of the parking lot ... guess what? There's a fellow hitching, so of course I gave him a ride. He was a grad student from Israel, working on his MA in Ed., in Worcester. Gave him a lift back to busy southbound exit on I95.

Always thought it was an interesting twist that kismet was bestowed upon me by a foreign national and was in turn passed on to another foreign national.

last year on the central gully bulge in hunt ravine, there was a guy soloing (not a big deal on central) and his crampon fell off on the ice. it fell roughly 30 feet into the less steep snow.

we had a belay already set up above the bulge (well my pal jeff did) and we tossed the rope down to the guy, he hacked his way up with one pon and and 2 ice tools with the security of the rope.. just as luck would have it - there was a guy below and we were able to toss the rope down and he tied the pon to the rope and we hauled it up. all ended well.

it wasn't a rescue and really wasn't a big deal, but there it is.

Kevin Rooney said:

Boy, ain't that the truth -
Always thought it was an interesting twist that kismet was bestowed upon me by a foreign national and was in turn passed on to another foreign national.

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I have given lifts to a lot more foreigners as of late than Americans. Maybe more foreigners are hiking?

MadRiver said:

I have given lifts to a lot more foreigners as of late than Americans. Maybe more foreigners are hiking?

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I think more foreigners are visiting the States lately since the value of the dollar has plummeted compared to other currencies. Although this wasn't the case 10 or 15 years ago when that incident occurred.

MadRiver said:

Here I go again. Are you saying he gave you a mean look as he told you to help?

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No....based on what I would have done, the mean look would have come after someone refused to help. It doesn't mean anything, just displeasure that someone wouldn't lend a hand when needed. I guess I could have refused, but why?

NewHampshire said:

Maybe he had "Cop" radar and mistakenly thought he was NH State Trooper and not Boston.

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That could be it!

bikehikeskifish said:

What I want to know is did he help at all?

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The trooper didn't go in for the carryout, he was coordinating from the parking lot with SAR and the ambulance.

I roped a guy down the steep sections from N. Kinsman. He had ascended using stabilicers. They had provided enough traction for the ascent but not the descent. He had taken a number of falls and had lost confidence.

Numerous rides provided to people who hiked out far from their car.

Provided the method & materials for fixing a broken crampon (it would have been a slow, difficult trip out without carmpons.

Assisting a fellow hiker who was severely cramping up.

Getting my ice ax to a hiker who was in a tough spot & then belaying the hiker to safety.

Guiding a lost AT hiker in the Great Gulf back on to the AT trail.

MadRiver said:

I have given lifts to a lot more foreigners as of late than Americans. Maybe more foreigners are hiking?

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I think more foreigners are hitchhiking, Americans think it's too chancy

I've given out water, food, bandaids, advice, carried packs, and walked out with people

I led a group from Fryeburg Rescue up to fetch an injured hiker at midnight because the friend who reported it was too beat to go back and I knew how to get there, also helped carry out

I helped carry out an injured snowmobiler who missed the upper bridge on Zealand Rd

On Oct. 30th, 1999, I was hiking up Mt Madison with a friend when we passed 2 older men on their way up to the summit. A few minutes later, one (Doug Thompson) collapsed of an apparent heart attack about 100 yards from the summit, and after about 30 frantic minutes of CPR he was sadly pronounced dead by his friend (who was a doctor).

About an hour later, a SAR helicopter landed on the back side of Madison. The 2 SAR personel hiked over to us and they also pronounced him dead. There was no way for us to carry him back up and over to where the SAR copter landed, so they decided to try and fly down to the Hut and land there. We watched them fly down and try and land at the hut, but the wind was too strong and after several attempts, they left...

We watched them fly off in somewhat disbelief, and soon realized that we were on our own. It was getting late so we had to act. We ended up taking some treking poles (and along with some rope) and made our own makeshift litter.

It took us an hour to carry him down the .4 miles to the hut. Our small group could not carry him all the way down to Rt 2, so we did the only thing we could do. We wrapped him in space blanket, and placed him under the hut, leaving Doug to spend his final night in he mountains which he loved so much...

The next day, the F&G came up and carried him back down with 30 people. They finally brought him back to his family...

The following June, I was honored to be invited to his funeral in the Tip Top House on the summit of Mt. Washington (I also met Little Bear for the 1st time this day) After hiking up to the summit with his son carrying his ashes, there was an emotional service for him, then his family scattered his remains into the wind...

One winter day, we were first on the scene for an ice climber who had fallen about 300 feet down North Gully in Huntington Ravine (nearly the full length on the lead rope from near the top of the gully; am still amazed that the belayer held a fall of that length). Fortunately, the fallen leader only suffered two severely sprained ankles, but we needed to lower him all the way down to the base of the bowl so that he could be transported back to Pinkham via the USFS Thiokol, and onto the hopsital (in NC?).

During my summer spent at Chimney Pond mapping the glacial geology of Mount Katahdin, I assisted various rangers on duty in assisting cold and wet hikers down from the Knife Edge, usually entirely after dark (helping someone scamble down Chimney Peak into the notch, then back up over Pamola Peak, and then down the Dudley Trail at night in a rainstorm was not fun). Fortunately, none of the hikers died, but some certainly might have succumbed to hypothermia had we not been willing to go out at night in inclement weather. Had any of these hikers suffered a broken ankle or the like, my guess is some might not have survived.