It was a fine day, good conditions, and I was riding a grade 4 trail that I knew well. Nothing out of the ordinary\u2014just one of those things. At high speed, I crashed. I have no memory of the crash itself. I came to with a mouth full of dirt, disoriented, alone, and very confused. I lay there, badly injured, with no one around to help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I phoned 111 on my cellphone, but the operator had trouble understanding exactly where I was. That\u2019s when I remembered my ResQLink<\/a>. I activated it. That beacon made all the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Incredibly, both the Whangamata Volunteer Fire Brigade<\/strong>\u2014the local rural first responders\u2014and the rescue helicopter<\/strong> arrived at about the same time. From the moment I activated the beacon to the helicopter\u2019s arrival, I estimate around 30 minutes<\/strong> passed. I was stabilised on-site, winched up through the trees with a medic, and flown to Waikato Hospital<\/strong> in Hamilton<\/a>. That leg took another 30 minutes or so, with about 15 minutes needed to prep me for the lift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The final tally of injuries: a broken clavicle<\/strong>, multiple broken ribs<\/strong>, significant bone bruising to my femur and pelvis<\/strong>, and most seriously, a traumatic brain injury<\/strong> with three small brain bleeds<\/strong>. I spent four weeks in the hospital, and I\u2019m still recovering from the brain injury four months later. But I\u2019m steadily improving and expect a full recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking back, it\u2019s obvious how crucial that PLB was. Without it, I likely would\u2019ve been facing a long wait, a complicated stretcher carry out through rugged bush, and a much more delayed arrival at emergency care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Looking back, it\u2019s obvious how crucial that PLB was. Without it, I likely would\u2019ve been facing a long wait, a complicated stretcher carry out through rugged bush, and a much more delayed arrival at emergency care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":245859,"featured_media":143628,"template":"","survivor-category":[],"terrain":[],"survivor-event":[136],"survivor-cause":[125],"survivor-rescue":[4242],"class_list":["post-143500","survivor-stories","type-survivor-stories","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","survivor-event-normal-conditions","survivor-cause-crash-or-collision","survivor-rescue-local-first-responders"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/survivor-stories\/143500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/survivor-stories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/survivor-stories"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/245859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"survivor-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/survivor-category?post=143500"},{"taxonomy":"terrain","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/terrain?post=143500"},{"taxonomy":"survivor-event","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/survivor-event?post=143500"},{"taxonomy":"survivor-cause","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/survivor-cause?post=143500"},{"taxonomy":"survivor-rescue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/survivor-rescue?post=143500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}