[PPRAANet] Amateur Radio Plays Critical Role in Mountain Rescue

[John Bloodgood]

This incident in Colorado was recently shared on the ARRL website ( http://www.arrl.org/news/amateur-radio-plays-critical-role-in-mountain-rescue ) and on the PPRAA and PPARES Facebook pages:



Amateur Radio Plays Critical Role in Mountain Rescue

08/08/2016


Glenn Fowler, N5TDJ, of Allen, Texas, reported via Facebook that Amateur Radio served him well on August 4.


"We were on a treacherous Jeep trip up at about 13,000 feet with several other Jeeps in Colorado," he said in his post. "One person there from Texas had a heart attack. There was no cell phone service."


"I tried a few repeaters and the National Simplex Frequency and was amazed that no one was monitoring any of them. I kept trying and finally reached an ARES station on a Breckenridge linked repeater that took our GPS coordinates and dispatched an ambulance to meet us at the first place they could intercept the trail."


Fowler reports the individual who suffered the heart attack was hospitalized, "and, thankfully, he received lifesaving help from paramedics a lot sooner, due to ham radio." Fowler is a member of the Plano Amateur Radio Club.


####

Note that he tried several repeaters and the national calling freq with no luck.  This is why listening is often extremely important.  Every year we help people who are stuck in the mountains, in an emergency, lost or missing, etc.  As was recently brought up during our Tuesday night ARES net, it is also a good idea to know the "Wilderness Protocol":

"The Wilderness protocol calls for hams in the wilderness to announce their presence on, and to monitor, the national calling frequencies for five minutes beginning at the top of the hour, every three hours from 7 AM to 7 PM while in the back country.  A ham in a remote location may be able to relay emergency information through another wilderness ham who has better access to a repeater.  National calling frequencies: 52.525, 146.52, 223.50, 446.00, 1294.50 MHz."

A fellow operator recorded some of the audio of the incident on his dash cam:  https://t.co/nns6kexhO2

v/r




John Bloodgood, KD0SFY
Emergency Coordinator & Public Information Officer
Region 2 District 2, Colorado ARES (Pikes Peak ARES)
www.facebook.com/PikesPeakARES<http://www.facebook.com/PikesPeakARES>
Twitter  @PikesPeakARES