{"id":33178,"date":"2025-08-22T13:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T13:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oceansignal.com\/?post_type=survivor-stories&#038;p=33178"},"modified":"2025-08-22T13:06:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T13:06:11","slug":"alone-injured-and-rescued-how-the-rescueme-plb1-got-me-out-of-the-ruahine-ranges-alive","status":"publish","type":"survivor-stories","link":"https:\/\/oceansignal.com\/us\/survivor-stories\/alone-injured-and-rescued-how-the-rescueme-plb1-got-me-out-of-the-ruahine-ranges-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Alone, Injured, and Rescued: How the rescueMe PLB1 Got Me Out of the Ruahine Ranges Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8217;s in New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u2014 nothing unusual, something I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, I remember hearing it and thinking that it was my brand-new boot lace snapping. As you can imagine, it wasn&#8217;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 <a href=\"https:\/\/oceansignal.com\/products\/plb1-personal-locator-beacon\/\">rescueMe PLB<\/a>1 as I wasn&#8217;t getting out by myself.<\/p>\n<p>Due to bad weather and remote, rugged terrain, the Westpac helicopter couldn&#8217;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&#8217;t been for my <a href=\"https:\/\/oceansignal.com\/products\/plb1-personal-locator-beacon\/\">rescueMe PLB1<\/a> it would have been a very long, cold, uncomfortable 3 or 4 days on the side of the hill until they found me.<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;m still recovering 5 months later, but I&#8217;m getting better all the time. I&#8217;m back out in the bush again, only on small day trips. I&#8217;ll tell you what, I don&#8217;t go anywhere without my rescueMe PLB1 and never will.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you a million times over, Ocean Signal. You really saved my backside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8217;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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6393,"featured_media":33162,"template":"","survivor-stories-category":[],"survivor-stories-cause":[],"survivor-stories-event":[],"survivor-stories-rescue":[],"survivor-stories-terrain":[],"class_list":["post-33178","survivor-stories","type-survivor-stories","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.2 (Yoast SEO v26.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How the rescueMe PLB1 Saved My Life After a Serious Hiking Accident in the Ruahine Ranges Alone, Injured, and Rescued: How the rescueMe PLB1 Got Me Out of the Ruahine Ranges Alive - Ocean Signal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After a serious fall in New Zealand\u2019s Ruahine Ranges left me with a broken leg and torn ligaments, the rescueMe PLB1 personal locator beacon saved my life. 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