Alone, Injured, and Rescued: How the rescueMe PLB1 Got Me Out of the Ruahine Ranges Alive

What happened?

I was out by myself one weekend and making the return trip to my car after spending the night at Kiritaki Hut in the southern Ruahine’s in New Zealand.

I could already taste and smell the hot coffee. As I dropped down a steep hillside from the top ridgeline, I reached a section of track partially washed out. About a one-meter drop — nothing unusual, something I’ve navigated thousands of times. But when my left foot hit the ground, it slipped out from under me. My entire body weight, plus 20 kilograms of pack, crashed down onto my right leg. Which was still planted at the top of the drop. I can still hear the snap clear as day even now.

In fact, I remember hearing it and thinking that it was my brand-new boot lace snapping. As you can imagine, it wasn’t my boot lace. I ended up badly breaking my leg and tearing all the ligaments down the inside of my ankle. This resulted in my ankle separating. I still had about 100m of descent to go and about another 8 km or so of stream bed to navigate. I decided to activate my rescueMe PLB1 as I wasn’t getting out by myself.

Due to bad weather and remote, rugged terrain, the Westpac helicopter couldn’t get to me, so they sent out the air force in an NH90, which rushed me to the hospital, 7 hours later, where I had surgery to have plates and screws inserted into my leg and ankle. If it hadn’t been for my rescueMe PLB1 it would have been a very long, cold, uncomfortable 3 or 4 days on the side of the hill until they found me.

Again, thanks to my rescueMe PLB1, they were able to get me to the hospital quickly, which meant they could operate the next day, saving me an extra 15 or so days in the hospital waiting for the swelling to go down before they would be able to operate. I’m still recovering 5 months later, but I’m getting better all the time. I’m back out in the bush again, only on small day trips. I’ll tell you what, I don’t go anywhere without my rescueMe PLB1 and never will.

Thank you a million times over, Ocean Signal. You really saved my backside.

Words of wisdom

ALways carry a PLB whether on a simple day trip or a multiday adventure. You never know when you’re going to need it.

Thank you note to the Ocean Signal team

Thank you so much to everyone involved. If it wasn’t been for all you amazing people I would of had a very uncomfortable 3-4 nights stuck alone, injured and isolated in the bush. You’re all super stars and I shall forever be grateful.