Another guy narrowly misses the Darwin Award

Wow, not too bright. Standard disclaimers, we don't know the full story, blah blah...but careless. He says he normally carries survival gear but hey- why take it when you're exploring an unknown road in the winter...IN ALASKA!

At least he stayed with his truck. He put himself in his predicament by being grossly underequipped, not leaving a trip plan, not obtaining local information and going in the first place. After all those mistakes, though, he saved his life by staying with his truck.

"His only provisions: Snow, and a few cans of Coors Light that had frozen solid in the cab. Vial ate the beers like cans of beans. "I cut the lids off and dug it out with a knife," he said."

I bet he learned a lesson and next time brings Leinenkugels beer.

Lost 16 pounds? Maybe I should try that......

I'll bet his dogs are glad they didn't go along on this trip!

Sue

Heck,If he had brought some Guiness instead of Sewers light,he probably would have gained some weight!

He is one lucky dude. Guess it just wasn't his time, 'cause he really shouldn't be alive.

HJ

OK, he deserves a bashing for driving randomly in Alaskan winter without survival gear.

But read the article again. Once stuck he really perfomed superbly. Making outmost of his local material he improved his insulation (paper in the socks and all that) as much as he could. Eating frozen beer - who would have thought of that? Ingenious. Strictly rationing the fuel reserves of his car - excellent.

To me, this is both a tale of stupidity (totally inadequate prepared) and of the survival mindset we need to develop.

Yeah, he done good. Using towels and paper as insulation was pretty clever.

HJ

One of our 11 yo Scouts went on a private (i.e. non-Scouts Canada) week long survival course this summer. One day & night near the end of the week there were tornado warnings for the area, so one of the instructors took the minors back to the They had a weather radio, checked it regularly, and then ingored it, even though they had transportation and a safe structure to retreat to.

This guy seems to have the same "Hey, I wonder..." mentality. "Let's see how far I get, but, let's make it interesting. Let's leave the survival gear I usually carry at home."

I'll take my Scout, who left the course because he lost respect for the instructors after that, over those fools any day!

The only stuff he had was in the cab of the truck. The main reason he used it as insulation was because he couldn't eat it, I suspect.

"Paper towels... paper towels... I wonder what I could use these for?"

Sue

Yeah, once he realized he's "stepped in it" he was smart and resourceful. Run the engine briefly, bundle up with everything you can find, etc. But it's simply amazing to me that a person thinks to themself, hmmm...think I'm gonna drive off and see how far that road goes without any gear! Especially since he says he usually carries some.

That does make me want to dig thru what I keep in my truck. Normally it's just driving to work or school (in town) but when I travel I like to be really prepared, especially in the winter. I don't like to leave town during the winter months without a good sleeping bag for starters.

If you go through chats of EDC minded people or preppers, you sometimes see a swinging trend between heavily prepared, and the bare minimum load. I have gone through that at times. And it seems that Murphy awaits you in those lean times when you don't have much on you.

I think that caching is one way to have the best of the two worlds. You carry less on you, but you are not very far from more gear.

In this case, the pickup should have contained one of his caches. A fixed project box, or whatever you may call it, would have easily contained a sleeping bag , warm clothes, and a week supply of food and water. This is not to say that wandering like he did was smart, but at least it would have made his adventure less stressful.

OTOH, I should admit that I did what he did when I was young and foolish, but I was lucky not to get stuck. In those adventures, I only had some tea,coffee, and little water, and never told anyone where I was going. I was just looking for quiet spaces to be alone.

Even the car wasn't 4x4, it was an underpowered sedan !
Now, I know how lucky I was.

Thank you for posting this, Phaedrus. It's another reminder that even a modest rucksack of gear could have made an enormous difference in his comfort level and safety.

And, ditto Susan on the dogs -- I'm glad they didn't suffer along with him.

What I find kind of irritating about the decisions people make is that they actually knew better, but went ahead and did the dumb thing anyway. And not just the little things, but actual life-threatening situations.

Kids and pets are often victims of this kind of here today/gone tomorrow thought processes. Like leaving them in closed cars, driving drunk, answering the phone in another room with a baby in the bathtub, going hiking with practically nothing and getting lost or caught by weather, not keeping the poorly-trained dog on a leash, etc, etc, etc.

Sue