The campsite manager gets a salute for sounding the alarm after the family had been gone for two days. His awareness and willingness to act were IMO decisive factors in this positive outcome.

For lack of a $4 compass from WalMart. Or a lighter.

Again we see the true value of even the minimal contents of a small psk, or even just a couple of EDC things.

But being old and getting cynical, I wonder about these folks. It suggests a war story from my military days that goes something like this:
Net Control: Where are you?
Operator: We don’t know—we are lost!
Net Control: Have you checked your map?
Operator: We left the maps back at the barracks.


Glad they were found OK. But I really wonder.
By the way, they did have a cell phone (dead, apparently) and a fixed blade knife, and considered "eating their dog" (but could not start a fire). Their story also seems to indicate they spoke to another mushroom picker while they were lost.
Here is a link to the story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...eating-DOG.html

Good article on the helo pilot who located them:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-bc-us--herochopperpilot,0,6862266.story

Strangely enough if you are on this forum you are already part of a small elite that actually prepares themselves for a Survival Situation. How may of these same article do we all come across in the average year. 15 to 20 on average. Of these only 3 to 5 seemed to have prepared themselves in any way.

"Good lesson learned!", but who learned it except for them and us?

Hard to say. For some, it will roll off like water off a duck. For others, it will confirm that the woods is a big, bad, scary place where bad things happen.

For a few, though, it will inspire a few second thoughts, and perhaps the first steps in the right direction. The simplest of things -- a bit of awareness and a few basic preps -- can tip the balance.