Here's an article I came across recently about an injured climber. Yes, this is sort of preaching to the choir, but I found his comments (in bold) at the end to be interesting, particularly given their context.
Injured man, 27, plucked off Mt. Baker
U.S. navy chopper comes to rescue after slide down glacier goes awry
Glenda Luymes
The Province
Thursday, August 07, 2008
An Abbotsford man is recovering in hospital after an accident on Mount Baker.
Nathan Prachnau was airlifted from the snow-capped Washington peak Monday evening after breaking his ankle.
"I'm in a little bit of pain, but I guess it could have been worse," he said yesterday from his hospital bed.
Prachnau, 27, and two friends were hiking down the mountain's steep summit when they decided to sit in the snow and slide for a short distance.
Prachnau's crampon snagged in some ice while his body continued to travel downhill, wrenching his leg and breaking his right fibula.
With the help of some other climbers, his friends made a splint out of their ice axes and a sled from some ski poles. It took five hours to descend 1,200 metres to their tents near the bottom of the Coleman Glacier. Prachnau rested while his friends tried to make a crutch, intending to try to walk down the mountain.
"I didn't have insurance," he said yesterday. "I didn't want to pay thousands of dollars for a helicopter."
Another hiker saw what was going on and radioed search-and-rescue. A U.S. navy helicopter soon arrived.
"They told me I didn't have to worry about paying for the rescue," said Prachnau.
He was transferred to an ambulance in Bellingham and admitted to hospital for two hours before his mother picked him up to bring him across the border.
Judy Prachnau said that, when she first talked to her son, he was sedated with painkillers.
"He kept saying, 'It's free,' " she recalled. "I guess he was pretty concerned about the cost [of the helicopter]."
Prachnau's family was worried when he didn't return home as planned by 7 p.m. Monday.
The father of one of his climbing buddies called 911 to report the three friends overdue and learned they had been airlifted off the mountain.
Prachnau had surgery in Abbotsford on Tuesday to repair a torn ligament and insert pins in his ankle. His leg will be in a cast for a few months.
But the avid outdoorsman said the accident won't stop him from climbing again.
"I would definitely be more prepared next time," he said.
"If you're somewhere out of phone range, you need to have some kind of radio or . . . emergency satellite phone."
"You need to be prepared for the worst, because it can happen."
There you have it, direct and to the point. That about says it (and from a person who's not a member of this forum, lol)
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