http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonj...b1-9ff0631bd5fb

So can we do a post-mortem on this? What should she have done differently?

She did many things right and a few wrong.

Wrong:
She went out into wilderness alone.
She did not tell anyone where she was going or when she would return.
No mention of use of maps or GPS to confirm her direction of travel.

Right:
She carried extra clothing and supplies.
She was aware of hypothermia and took measures not to let it interfere with her self-rescue.
She kept a positive mental attitude and perserved in the face of difficulty.
She was familliar with the area so did not have to rely on maps.
She improvised to tools to overcome her disabilities (wiper use while driving)

Dumb and lucky.

And may I offer my opinion that she will probably make the same errors in judgment again?

I know, I know. Cynical & judgmental. <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Sue

I tend to disagree on one point. There is absolutely nothing wrong with going in to the wilderness alone as long as you are prepared. Goodness, if I never when in to the wilderness alone I would miss out on 95% of the hiking, camping and hunting (though I don't hunt anymore) trips I have ever been on!

going ablone is a safety hazard. But i and lots of others like being alone in the outdoors. It's a kind of peacefullness you get wenn your alone in the wild... Ofcorse this means we have to take extra measure in securing our safety.

This guy explains it very well why people go in the wild alone: http://woodsdrummer.com/alone.html

> [color:"green"]She went out into wilderness alone.[/color]

Risky, perhaps, but I wouldn't say it was wrong.

> [color:"green"]She did not tell anyone where she was going or when she would return.[/color]

Did that matter here? If she had told someone, should she have sat and waited for rescue?

> [color:"green"]No mention of use of maps or GPS to confirm her direction of travel.[/color]

Did that matter here? I see no indication that she ever got lost or travelled in the wrong direction.

My main query is whether she would have benefited from a mobile phone. I'm guessing she was out of signal when the accident happened, but by the time she got back to her car she surely could have called for help.

One thing that caught my attention- she was pushing her skis ahead of her. She should have just left them behind.

Why not lie on top of them and use them as a sled? Then paddle kind of like riding a surfboard?

I wouldn't leave the skis behind because you will need them to distribute your weight on deep snow if you don't want to sink in chest-deep. I have learned that the hard way.

Skis are rather slim and you would probably have to remove the binding too, it works ok with snowboards though. Ideally, you can build a crude sled with some wood and cord out of them.

I had several comments, but they have pretty much been covered here. I think she did quite well. The only things I really think she could have benefited from would have been a beacon or a phone capable of getting service where she was.

I can't find anywhere in the article that said she hadn't told anybody where she was. Even if she had, when would they have started looking for her and would it have done her any good? Just because they may have known the area she was in it may have taken forever to find her. She may have frozen to death waiting for somebody else to come get her. Better to have a clear head and know what you are doing and it sounds like she did. If you are lost it is often good to wait, but she wasn't lost.

She could have signaled for rescuers too I suppose, but if I knew where I was and had that type of injury I would have started crawling instead of waiting on the unknown variable of a rescue crew.

Sometimes the only reason I go to the woods is so I can be alone. It is incredibly uplifting to go spend some hours or days alone in the wilderness.

I think a PLB would be the only thing she really should have had. They are still expensive and not common everywhere yet, so who knows. A "instant splint" would have been useful maybe, but a broken ankle is a bit more complicated than a broken leg. She still may not have been able to walk.

She is alive and in pretty good shape all things considered. What more could you ask for in that situation?

Seems that would make you a lot colder.

Brian:

Since she was already crawling in the snow with the skis in front of her, why would laying on the skis make her colder?

If she had an external framed backpack, she could have bridged the skis with the backpack frame laced to the bindings so the cordage was not on the bottom of the skis, and lay on the frame which would have kept more of her body out of the snow.

Bountyhunter

more of your body touching the snow

"Lorne Kublik, her father, is upset she didn't tell her boyfriend in advance which ski trail she was on or when to expect her home."

"Even if she had, when would they have started looking for her and would it have done her any good? Just because they may have known the area she was in it may have taken forever to find her. She may have frozen to death waiting for somebody else to come get her."

Letting people know where you're likely to be need not necessarily be followed by waiting for someone to rescue you. Just like you've got redundancies with your firestarting materials, CYA is still the name of the survival game.

Suppose she had also broken one of her arms? Suppose a storm had materialized?

Yes, she did some things right. AND she was lucky.

Working your way out of a survival situation is still second best to not getting into one in the first place. While no one is all-seeing and all-knowing, why not hedge your bets?

Sue

Brian:

If your skis are in front of you instead of your body being on the skis, then more of your body is touching the skis.

Bountyhunter

You know I didn't see that quote form her father because I didn't notice the tiny little "more" at the bottom of the page the first 2 or 3 times I read it. Either I need a bigger monitor or these site designers need to highlight things like that "more". It blended in with all the extraneous crap on that site.

I did not see it either. I had thought the story ended prematurely. Now it makes more sense.

Tough lady. I can't fault her for anything. I probably would have stopped and built a fire. But then I would have had people out looking for me at the time. She didn't. Situations differ. Going out in the mountains alone is one of the things that make life worth living.

I think she did ok under the circumstances.

Regards, Vince