After the rescue.

[jrcinnh]

Last weekend we had a random summit encounter with a coworker of the young Portsmouth man recently rescued from Lake of the clouds.
The hiker is still at risk of finger and toe amputation, and has significant loss of feeling in his arms due to frostbite. Obviously we hope he has the best medical care.
This and the recent reposting of Professor Herr's story, got me thinking how the public, even hikers tend to think about rescues and deaths and maybe glosses over some life changing injuries that can occur.
I'm not sure how to get these messages out there, I'm already accused of gatekeeping or mansplaining, when someone asks advice on something I feel is risky.

 

[sierra]

Last weekend we had a random summit encounter with a coworker of the young Portsmouth man recently rescued from Lake of the clouds.
The hiker is still at risk of finger and toe amputation, and has significant loss of feeling in his arms due to frostbite. Obviously we hope he has the best medical care.
This and the recent reposting of Professor Herr's story, got me thinking how the public, even hikers tend to think about rescues and deaths and maybe glosses over some life changing injuries that can occur.
I'm not sure how to get these messages out there, I'm already accused of gatekeeping or mansplaining, when someone asks advice on something I feel is risky.

People tend to focus on what directly affects them, it's hard to get people to think of things in an abstract form. I got frostbite in the early 90's and my hands and feet get cold to this day, long before most people feel the cold. If it were easy to get a proactive message out there, we wouldn't be talking about the continuous rescues every year with the same common denominators.