Several years ago, one of my old university friends and his family unfortunately made the national news because they found themselves in a survival situation completely unprepared while on vacation. Fortunately, everyone survived, but his wife lost a couple of toes to frostbite. She was the more athletic of the two, so she stuck out through the snow to seek help while he stayed with their young son at the rental car that had gone off the road into a snow drift.

She never actually made to find help, lost her footwear, and sought shelter in a closed ranger shack. He ended up leaving their son with the car and climbing until he finally got a cellphone signal to call for rescue. The SAR finally found his wife, but as I said, she suffered frostbite and lost a toe or two.

I didn’t even find out about all this until it was all over, of course, and it hit the news when they returned from vacation. I just about had a heart attack when I realised it was my friend.