https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/mis...vine/ar-AAynMWf

very, very fortunate outcome...

“...A member of the public had heard her shouts on Saturday, but didn't inform the police until Thursday. ...”

Meanwhile, 10 feline hikers rescued ...by a Compassionate Woman ... and she didn’t wait until Thursday...

The takeaway, IMHO, is twofold.

She told someone she was going for a hike.

After the fall, she crawled to water and stayed by it.

And yes, it's correct to note that she was very fortunate that the fall did not cause significant injuries. Loss of mobility would likely have been fatal. Cascade effect.

As for the late report to authorities, it's understandable. You might not exactly know what you heard, really, when you're in the moment. But it still came in time. A win is a win.

This could be an example of how three whistle blasts might be somewhat less ambiguous than simply shouting - one can easily take a distress shout as being nothing but aimless noise.

Signal mirrors don't work too well when one is deep in a gully,but PLBs do (note to self - perhaps consider acquiring a PLB next time when walking in a gulch).

Per this 2008 ACR ResQfix 406 MHz PLB test in eight Zion slot canyons, PLBs can work in slot canyons, but nowhere near as well as in open ground - the location accuracy was far poorer, and in one of the eight canyons, the PLB was not detected during the test (which seems likely to have been 2 hours, but not explict.) In one of the 7 successful cases, the location accuracy was 10 miles in 9 minutes, 3 miles after 9 hours, and 2 miles after 17 hours.

For those wanting meatier details than the summary article linked above, here is the download link to the 16 pg test report by Kevin Killian

Agree about the whistle blasts in threes. Structure is noteworthy, if only subconsciously at the time.

But how many people in 10,000 know that anything-in-threes is a distress signal?

Well, any of Montanero's scouts, that's for sure, but it isn't required knowledge to graduate from middle school.

The other thing about whistling is that it uses far less energy and is far less likely to dehydrate you, than shouting...

You know it! I just spent the morning working on Wilderness Survival Merit Badge requirements. Last weekend we camped at the SERE compound, survival area (not the RTL) and received survival training from the Army SERE instructors. The boys slept in debris huts that they built. We have fun.

Speaking of signaling, Hikermor and AKSAR in particular, I have found differences in ground to air signals being published in various books and survival cards. What are the SAR people taught as far as physical signals constructed on the ground and what they mean? Is there a standard SAR resource?

I would probably go for three groups of threes. Arranged like this:


Many people who do not understand the meaning of three's as an emergency signal will probably recognize this specific one. Easy enough to do the above with a whistle, a bit harder with a mirror (unless you have a very specific target you are aiming at), even harder with firearm shots. I guess you could do it using a combo of a .22 pistol and a .308 rifle, utilizing their very different sound signatures, or possibly by using different spacing between shots to indicate short vs. long.