It was a Sunday evening, four very hungover teenagers were starting a quick hike up to Mystery Lake to camp for the night. The area was a short two to three hour walk that is popular for day hikers and mountain bikers. The weather was perfect and we had a great night camping up by the pristine lake.

The next morning, we slowly packed up tents and started the (hopefully) quick walk down to the cars and civilization. Not even 15 minutes into the walk, one of the party members slipped over, falling face-first into the dirt. We didn’t think much of it until we rolled her over to find her kneecap on the side of her leg and absolutely no chance of her walking anymore. 

A quick assessment lead us to set the ResQLink+ PLB off straight away and two of the party climbed the closest hill to try to get phone coverage to alert search and rescue as to what had happened. Unsuccessfully, we climbed back down and waited. Just under an hour after setting off the ResQLink+ PLB we heard the sound of a chopper in the distance and were all incredibly relieved when the Westpac Rescue flew over us and dropped a paramedic off.

Over the next hour, we reset the kneecap, packaged her up and got her in the helicopter. One member of the party also got a free ride back to the hospital while the remaining two scrambled down quickly (and safely) to drive back to the city and let everyone know we were ok.