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#195029 - 02/03/10 02:35 PM Lost on the ice
Doug_SE_MI Offline
Newbie

Registered: 01/05/08
Posts: 35
Loc: Michigan
A German tourist walked out on off-shore ice to photograph a sunset and couldn't find the direction to shore as darkness fell.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/22419282/detail.html

Improvised signaling saved his life...

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#195034 - 02/03/10 04:51 PM Re: Lost on the ice [Re: Doug_SE_MI]
Todd W Offline
Product Tester
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 11/14/04
Posts: 1928
Loc: Mountains of CA
WOW, of all the luck someone on a webcam saved them!

That's a great story and I can see how you could easily get turned around out there.
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Self Sufficient Home - Our journey to self sufficiency.

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#195039 - 02/03/10 06:21 PM Re: Lost on the ice [Re: Todd W]
MostlyHarmless Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 06/03/09
Posts: 982
Loc: Norway
Wow, great story!

+ and a big cheers! For ingenuity and creative use of whatever resources at hand!

- A simple button compass stashed away somewhere and he would simply walk back to shore without incident. (Well, not totally true - walking back along a different route he may cross areas of rotten ice).

- A cell phone would make a much more reliable signaling device than a camera flash (I would be astonished if he was out of cell coverage area).

As always there's a lot of details we don't know, so I won't jump to more conclusions than I already have. All is well that ends well. And experienced means someone who has gotten away with doing the wrong thing more often than you have.

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#195041 - 02/03/10 07:12 PM Re: Lost on the ice [Re: MostlyHarmless]
clarktx Offline
Enthusiast

Registered: 07/01/08
Posts: 250
Loc: Houston, Texas
its a cool story, and good for the guy who was smart enough to try "anything". But it does seem to highlight (yet again) how being unprepared is so newsworthy.

I heard "somewhere" that preparedness doesn't sell. But news stories about the unprepared "surviving by some miracle" sell handily. I guess thats the irony. if people were more prepared we'd have less interesting news stories!
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You can't teach experience.

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#195057 - 02/03/10 10:50 PM Re: Lost on the ice [Re: clarktx]
Susan Offline
Geezer

Registered: 01/21/04
Posts: 5163
Loc: W. WA
And cheers to the woman who saw the flashes and didn't brush it off. I wonder how many saw it and ignored it. I noticed in the article that they only mentioned the ONE person contacting the authorities.

I guess anyone can get into trouble without half trying, and it does take away some of your Stupid Points if you manage to get yourself out of it. Kind of...

Sue

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#195068 - 02/04/10 01:32 AM Re: Lost on the ice [Re: Susan]
MDinana Offline
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 03/08/07
Posts: 2208
Loc: Beer&Cheese country
I have to wonder how he didn't know at least a rough direction? I mean, he had to walk a certain direction towards the big glowing ball in the sky. Was it dark already, overcast? Obviously things we don't know. But really, you'd think that finding an entire coastline would be a pretty easy target!

Kudos though, for keeping his head on enough to signal somehow.

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#195070 - 02/04/10 01:47 AM Re: Lost on the ice [Re: MDinana]
clarktx Offline
Enthusiast

Registered: 07/01/08
Posts: 250
Loc: Houston, Texas
yeah, and in this world full of webcams, camera phones, and digital cameras everywhere... we don't have nearly enough alien sightings.

off topic, just sayin'
_________________________
You can't teach experience.

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#195076 - 02/04/10 06:44 AM Re: Lost on the ice [Re: clarktx]
TheSock Offline
Addict

Registered: 11/13/07
Posts: 471
Loc: London England
Staying off topic. The Ministry of Defence who are responsible for investigating ufo sightings in the UK, recently gave the figures for the number they had actually bothered to investigate: 0.
The british equivalent of 'the X files'; 'the can't be bothered files'.

The Sock
_________________________
The world is in haste and nears its end – Wulfstan II Archbishop of York 1014.

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#195077 - 02/04/10 07:30 AM Re: Lost on the ice [Re: MDinana]
MostlyHarmless Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 06/03/09
Posts: 982
Loc: Norway
Originally Posted By: MDinana
I have to wonder how he didn't know at least a rough direction? I mean, he had to walk a certain direction towards the big glowing ball in the sky. Was it dark already, overcast? Obviously things we don't know. But really, you'd think that finding an entire coastline would be a pretty easy target!


I'm guessing here... that he went out to see the same sunset as the lady was watching over the web cam. The puzzling fact is that if the sunset is anywhere near interesting you can usually see a faint glow on the sky in the direction long time after the sun actually has gone down (at least at the latitudes we are discussing here). That glow should be a pretty reliable direction indicator => West is THERE, ok the coast should be somewhere in that direction.

But - who are we to know he possessed enough orienteering skills to pull off the above line of reasoning?

After all, who wants to stare at a sunset web cam if there is no glow in the sky? A totally black screen is not very interesting... Most likely, he lost sight of land in the twilight and didn't think of or did not want to wander off in on the rather vague direction provided by "west there - land that way" kind of reasoning.

Getting lost in flat terrain with just minor "bumps" is surprisingly easy. To find shore, you have to distinguish between snow covered "semi-flat" ice (with snow drifts, ice pileups, ridges and so on" and snow covered "semi-flat" terrain (with snow drifts, rocks and so on). That can be hard enough in daylight and next to impossible in twilight - all you see in ANY direction is a flat world with snow drift piles and some ice ridges poking through.

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#195090 - 02/04/10 03:52 PM Re: Lost on the ice [Re: MostlyHarmless]
hikermor Offline
Geezer in Chief
Geezer

Registered: 08/26/06
Posts: 7705
Loc: southern Cal
"Northern Germany" is situated at a fairly high latitude. The sunset afterglow may be less directional than that to which most of us low latitude types have experienced. The news story implies that the tourist's disorientation was by no means unique.

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Geezer in Chief

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