{"id":91547,"date":"2024-10-14T09:46:48","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T14:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/?post_type=survivor-stories&p=91547"},"modified":"2025-02-28T08:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T13:22:07","slug":"stranded-and-injured-a-hunters-decision-to-activate-his-lifesaving-beacon","status":"publish","type":"survivor-stories","link":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/survivor-stories\/stranded-and-injured-a-hunters-decision-to-activate-his-lifesaving-beacon\/","title":{"rendered":"Stranded and Injured: A Hunter’s Decision to Activate His Lifesaving Beacon"},"content":{"rendered":"

After finishing work on Thursday, I loaded up the car and headed to the hills of Kakapotahi<\/a> for four days of hunting, sightseeing, and everything in between. It was going to be a perfect getaway.<\/p>\n

I arrived at the hut around 9:30 p.m. but found someone already fast asleep inside. Not wanting to disturb them, I decided to push on. Aiming to camp just below the bush line for a prime morning hunt.<\/p>\n

However, around 10:30 p.m., I lost the track and spent the next hour searching for it. Instead, I found myself in steep terrain, far from where I needed to be. With a heavy pack, rifle, bow, and my dog, managing the situation was becoming too much. I decided to turn around and find some flat ground to set up camp until daylight.<\/p>\n

While descending through some steep terrain, I slipped and slid down, catching my foot on a tree root. The adrenaline masked the pain, following the main river valley in hopes of finding the track. No luck.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the pain from my ankle kicked in hard. I climbed back into the bush and finally found the track I had been searching for. It wasn\u2019t exactly where the map had marked it. I laid out my mat and tried to sleep. Unfortunately, the pain in my ankle kept me up most of the night.<\/p>\n

By morning, after a long, sleepless night and with my ankle in worse shape, I decided to activate my ResQLink 400 PLB<\/a> (Personal Locator Beacon) around 10:00 a.m. It was a tough call since I wasn\u2019t in immediate life-threatening danger, but there was no way I could hike the four hours back to my car in my condition.<\/p>\n

The rescue team arrived and winched me out from where I was, even helping to gather my seemingly endless pile of gear. Two months later, my ankle is almost back to full strength, and I\u2019m back in the hills doing what I love.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the rescue team from both Jim and Ruger!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eventually, the pain from my ankle kicked in hard. I climbed back into the bush and finally found the track I had been searching for, but it wasn\u2019t exactly where the map had marked it. I laid out my mat and tried to sleep, but the pain in my ankle kept me up most of the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205287,"featured_media":0,"template":"","survivor-category":[18],"terrain":[16],"survivor-event":[2717],"survivor-cause":[123],"survivor-rescue":[139],"class_list":["post-91547","survivor-stories","type-survivor-stories","status-publish","hentry","survivor-category-hunting","terrain-forest","survivor-event-challenging-terrain","survivor-cause-medical-emergency","survivor-rescue-local-search-and-rescue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/survivor-stories\/91547","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\/205287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"survivor-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/survivor-category?post=91547"},{"taxonomy":"terrain","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/terrain?post=91547"},{"taxonomy":"survivor-event","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/survivor-event?post=91547"},{"taxonomy":"survivor-cause","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/survivor-cause?post=91547"},{"taxonomy":"survivor-rescue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acrartex.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/survivor-rescue?post=91547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}