Here’s some news stories over the past week or two that for whatever reason I’ve found interesting. I’ve added a few comments and would be interested in hearing yours.
Read on…
Here’s a story right from my own neighborhood. I live within a town or two’s distance from the location of this story:
WALDOBORO — A 27-year-old Waldoboro man was found dead Feb. 10 after a reactivated search from the night before.
At approximately 6:15 p.m., on Feb. 9, Waldoboro Police officers responded to a disturbance at 951 Winslow Mills Road. Upon arriving at the residence, police were advised that Frank Leathers left the residence on foot and was headed south on Winslow Mills Road to a friend’s house on Route 1.
Sgt. Jamie Wilson and additional officers from the Waldoboro Police Department followed footprints found leading into the woods across the street from the residence. However due to deep snow and extreme weather conditions the search was terminated at approximately 12:30 a.m.
The next morning, a second search was initiated by Game Warden Joe Lefebvre, and at approximately 11:15 a.m., the body of Leathers was located several hundred yards off the road.
Although this death is not considered as suspicious, an autopsy has been scheduled for Feb. 11 at the Medical Examiners Office in Augusta.
First, condolences to the family.
To set this in context Saturday night was the night after the big blizzard we had here. The snow was fresh and deep, it was cold out and the wind was blowing at a pretty good clip. Movement through the woods was difficult at best and it would be easy to get turned around in a situation like that. If he wasn’t dressed properly or didn’t have the necessary skills he would have been in trouble very quick.
I went out on snowshoes earlier in the day and the snow was at least two feet deep and it had drifted in places. Very difficult walking conditions, so I know exactly what I’m talking about.
There are two things that stand out to me here. 1.) Why did he go out in the woods in the first place? 2.) It’s a shame the police didn’t go a little deeper into the woods to find this guy.
We may never know the answer to the first question, but I’m thinking about contacting the police and giving them my name for any kind of tracking or search and rescue that needs to be done in a situation like this. I feel fairly confident that I could have followed this guy and found him eventually. Whether or not he could have been rescued remains I’ll never know, but it would have been worth a shot.
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Adrift on the Love Boat
Here’s a story that caught my eye because these kind of stories tend to repeat themselves. A cruise liner had a fire in the engine room and now the vessel is adrift. There’s limited electricity, sewage running down the walls, and people are sleeping on deck because there’s no air conditioning in the cabins plus they’re standing in line 3 1/2 hours to get food.
How’s that for a memorable vacation?
In the grand scheme of things they’re lucky the ship didn’t go down that far out to sea.
I sat around for awhile thinking, “How would I have prepped for an event like this?” Well, the best thing I could have had was my BOB with me I guess. If I ever go on one of these cruises I’m going to have my BOB packed full of my home made MREs along with other survival gear.
How would you prep for something like this? Or maybe a worse situation?
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Asteroid Flyby
On Friday an asteroid is going to fly by Earth (I hope.) What makes this so special is that by astronomical standards it’s akin to someone shooting a bullet at you from a mile away and the bullet grazing that tiny little hair on the top of your ear without actually hurting you.
No impact, but man was that close!
Actually, an asteroid that size isn’t considered a planet buster, but if it hit New York City or any other major city it would be serious bad news. They think it’s about the size of the meteor/asteroid that caused the Tunguska Event back in 1908 in Russia. It’s an interesting read. Lucky for us it hit way out in the middle of nowhere.
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North Korea Sets Off a Nuke
More sable rattling coming out of North Korea. Let’s hope that’s all it is.
On Tuesday North Korea tested a nuclear weapon.
There was the usual outcry from various countries.
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With all this craziness happening in the world I’d say it’s a pretty good idea to be a prepper.
Questions? Comments?
Sound off below!
-Jarhead Survivor
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
My coworker took a cruise two weeks ago on that very boat – he freaked out when I broke the news to him about it. How do you prep for that – I don’t know, a bit too off shore for making a ‘poncho raft’ and going for broke, lol. Though I’m sure many of the passengers have already considered that idea by now . . .
The asteroid passing earth – thats spooky! The bespeckled ‘science guy person’ tells us hitting us is very remote, but these same folks put the Hubble telescope into space without peering through it beforehand – they could be wrong. What can you do about it – nothing, but be prepared for ‘just in case’. An ocean hit (see Lucifer’s Hammer) would cause a massive tidal wave, that is certain. Anyone living near a coastline (myself included) should be prepared for that to occur, that would be a major disaster far worse than a hurricane or blizzard could whip up. A huge population lives near coastlines.
I’ve read Lucifer’s Hammer a couple of times. Thanks for bringing up the ocean strike. I look out my window at work and can see the ocean and now I’m trying not to be paranoid.
Jeez.
That was funny Jarhead!
Your dive skills are at least as valuable to your community as your wilderness savvy. It couldn’t hurt to offer your services. better yet, train a few of them in land navigation. see if they have any interest in starting a regional dive unit, or a regional wilderness SAR unit. If you had found the guy, you might have needed to drag him back by yourself… I’m not really a team player myself, but it helps to have a team sometimes.
I’ve thought about adding floatation vests to my Bugout gear. ocean water temps are warm enough where the loveboat is stranded to let you survive a few days in the water.
fire on board the ship is bad news. back when I worked at the Navy Yard, one of the first things they taught us, was always have a working flashlight on your person. there are few places darker than inside a ship with the lights out.
the other thing they said was: always plan out two ways off the ship, and if possible two ways out of the area in which you were working.
an asteroid strike would be bad news: land or sea.
you need to carry a good bit of gear to make a winter rescue:
tarp/tent, backpacking stove, beverages and food sufficient to fight off hypothermia…
chemical hand-warmers, maybe. winter sleeping bag, or “space blanket” bivvy for each victim. (maybe a propane heater also, if firewood is under a few feet of snow)
You ain’t kidding, Irish. But if one man’s effort can save another’s life than I guess it might be worth it.
A good friend of mine had to dive to pick up the body of a guy who drowned a couple of years ago. Pretty sad stuff.
Also, about eight or ten years ago a woman went off the road and into a quarry and died. It was winter and the police dive team wouldn’t go down to pick her up. Claimed the water was too deep. She stayed in that quarry for a week or two and I finally couldn’t take it any more and called my buddy (the one I talk about above), but by that time another civilian dive crew came in and extracted her. Turns out she was only in about 30 feet of water.
The kicker is that this happened just down the street from where she lived. Can you imagine her young son living with the knowledge that his mom was in the quarry less than a 1/4 mile from the house and not properly buried? Awful.
About 8 years ago, I rescued a mid 20′s guy who was caught in a rip current & the surf was pretty big. I was body surfing about 50-60 yards away & saw him panicking & flapping like a wounded bird. The beach was a popular area with plenty of lifeguards but somehow they did not see him.
I was wearing fins & swam over & talked to him to reduce the panic & started to pull him laterally out of it. (Rip currents are like a river & aren’t too wide but they can be swift).
As I grabbed his forearm & rather large set of waves came. His eyes got bigger than 2 dinner plates & I knew we were going to take bit of a ride. I grew up on the beach & surfed since I was 8 years old & rather enjoy being bounced around in large surf …. but not all people see they same thing as joy.
Anyway, I grabbed his forearm & had him do the same back like an Indian handshake & said hold your breath. The wave picked us up, we free fell over the falls & tumbled pretty hard & I lost grip. Holy shit! I thought. I popped up & he eventually popped up sucking in the what was left of the Earth’s oxygen. I smiled & said ” no problem, that’s pretty normal”. I was lying through my teeth.
I grabbed his arm again & said start kicking with me & we’ll be good in a minute. We got out of the rip but then there was the 150 + yard swim in & he was already drained. By the time we hit waist high water he hugged me & said he was never going into the water again. Who could blame him?
I’m mostly OK with “civillians” performing recoveries, or rescues. (especially if I owned a business with the capabilities) personally I wouldn’t like having to directly bill the family for a recovery…
… I’m glad I’ve never had to deal with a “real” rescue.
Good Job Jason.
“one man’s effort” is sometimes all you’ve got. your neighbors needed the speed you can offer, and the “authorities” just weren’t up to the job. even You might have had your hands full. (and Your Waldoboro victim, was already in a bad situation before he left the house)
Comms are essential, in these situations. (but very difficult) you need a solid link, and someone on the “other end” . you need someone you can trust with your life, on the dive boat. (GPS couldn’t hurt either, out in the woods)
Thanks Irish. I hate seeing people panic & being scared, it really gets me down to the core. It doesn’t make me mad, I just want to make people feel they are protected & cared for.
I have had people reach out to me & help me in many dicey situations & the feeling that a complete stranger would jump in to help me is an experience I never forgot. I want to pass that along as much as I can.
I hear ya.
There comes a point in a bad situation, when anyone, even the strongest/most knowledgeable guy is likely to “lose-it”. People who are drowing, will end up drowning their rescuers…
people who are freezing to death, will sometimes drop all their gear and may remove their clothing. Your best efforts can’t save everyone.
THE PROBLEM WITH NORTH KOREA IS WE HAVE NO IDEA JUST HOW CLOSE THEY ARE TO ARMING A ROCKET WITH A WAR HEAD. IF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY ALLOWS THEM TO DO SO IT WILL BE DISATEROUS. WE ARE GIVING THEM THE ULTIMATE LEVEARGE BY DOING NOTHING. AND TO THINK CHINA WILL STOP THEM, WHAT MAKES US BELIEVE THEY EVEN WANT TO. IT TAKES EYES OFF THEM TO CARRY OUT MORE CYBER ATTACKS WHILE WE ARE DEALING WITH NORTH KOREA. I THINK THEY ARE WORKING TOGETHER. THATS JUST ME.
with all the woods in that part of the country I’m suprised that the county sheriff doesn’t have an organized and trained search and rescue team. On the asteroid, one of the CNN anchors asked the science dude if global warming could be causing the asteroids to fly closer to earth!! The guy just stared at her for several seconds before giving a totally different answer not related to her question. I almost spit out my coffee laughing so hard.
seriously if you are interested in helping your area form a SAR group contact me and I will put you in touch with the San Diego county search and rescue unit. They operate as a unit of the sheriff’s department.
I contacted the police chief and am waiting for him to call back. We’ll see what he says.
In the 50′s a high school friend and I would spend the entire summer on Kezar pond in Maine. Back then summer seemed a year long. We had a canoe and fished for our food. We ate pretty good. The nearset small town which I think is now called Lovell was a store a gas station and a church back then. We would walk in on an old logging road and buy a sack of potatoes and whatever else looked good and carry it back while swatting black flies. It was so rare to have visitors that I can only remember one time any humans came within a 1/4 mile of where we camped. The Kezar pond used to be bigger but a large part of it was “wetland” with a small waterway that winded through it. This offered the best fishing for perch and small pickerel. When we were out on the water Mt. Washington loomed above us but other then that it was all regrowth from the turn of the century. What a beautiful place. I have also camped there in the winter and it was too cold and too snowy to ever be comfortable in a tent. I can remember one clear night with a full moon in late November canoeing the Saco river and you could see and hear the ice forming on the river. You had to look directly at the reflection of the moon on the water to see it but it would crytalize and make the feintest “tingling” sound that could only be heard because of the dead silence. I can only remember one cabin on the lake back then, I think it belonged to a judge in one of the nieghboring towns. Great memories. Growing up I wanted to live in Maine but back then there was no work at all.
Sounds like a great time, GWTW. I love the sound the ice makes at night when it’s quiet. I’ve actually camped on lakes before and you can hear the ice groaning all night long, sometimes close and sometimes far away.
I’ve been part of our local county’s disaster prepairedness folks off and on, as time’s permitted, for years. I think everone in the prepper community should at least think about hooking up with their local S&R & disaster preparedness folks.
150 feet is nothin’ for an asteroid. The one that made metor crater in Arazona was a Nickle Iron rock about 300-600 feet in Diamiter.(2-5 megaton blast) The tunguska blast was thought to be a “dirty snowball” of 800-2000 feet dia.(it made an 8 MEGATON blast) A big asteroid would be in the 1 MILE + range ,That is your E.L.E .(a 1 mile wide rock will kill EVERYTHING on any contenent it hits .Hitting the water won’t change a thing, It won’t even slow down. A realy big rock ,say 6-10 miles kills EVERYTHING with a body bigger than 50lb. Bigger than10 miles earth ends looking like Mars. As for the dead guy, You cant fix stupid, but nature can and did. Sad for his folks, but natural selection works.
Being from Northern Arizona, the asteroid story reminded me of this from a several weeks ago:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/20130111arizona-meteor-crater-mine-shaft-rescue-abrk.html?nclick_check=1
Sometimes you can’t fix stupid.
You are assuming the police are properly trained for SAR. They may be trained for it when there isn’t two feet of fresh snow, but not properly trained when there is. I realize you’re in Maine, but how often does it happen? Unfortunately, he was right in not jeopardizing his people unnecessarily.
I’d highly recommend you offering your services in those circumstances. Maybe you can get the officers/deputies trained. I certainly wouldn’t be going off into the woods like that without snow shoes, etc.
Just like you have good wilderness skills and go shooting, many LEOs don’t. Just something to keep in mind. Hindsight is always 20/20.