Wilderness Emergency

The Night Rider said:
Did you get the pig?
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She nailed me as I came through a thick batch of palmettos. She didn't slash but hung on the crotch of my Wranglers shaking her head back and forth like a terrier with a rat. I wasn't going to shoot myself with a shotgun so I beat her head with the butt of the 870. She finally let go.
The Wranglers weren't torn but my scrotum was. Luckily, I already had a vasectomy so my fertility wasn't damaged if you get my drift.
 
Patocazador said:
She nailed me as I came through a thick batch of palmettos. She didn't slash but hung on the crotch of my Wranglers shaking her head back and forth like a terrier with a rat. I wasn't going to shoot myself with a shotgun so I beat her head with the butt of the 870. She finally let go.
The Wranglers weren't torn but my scrotum was. Luckily, I already had a vasectomy so my fertility wasn't damaged if you get my drift.
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Dang, I'd be wishing for a big belt knife at that moment. But I suppose it happened pretty fast.
 
Not really. About all I’ve ever “needed” from my hunting pack was a light, poncho, swig of water, and I popped a bootlace once and some cordage worked out alright for that.

Still…. Doesn’t hurt to have some emergency kit just in case you break an ankle and gotta sit tight a day or two or if you get turned around and lost.
 
md7 said:
Doesn’t hurt to have some emergency kit just in case you break an ankle and gotta sit tight a day or two or if you get turned around and lost.
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"Comfort" items can make or break you. I had to sit out just one night once. No food, not a problem. Not a problem being cold and uncomfortable all night. But man, I would have lied cheated or killed, or sold the Jeager for some instant coffee, a tea bag, or even a packet of hot chocolate. And if I was granted three wishes, it would be three cups of coffee. Don't think I ever went into the woods again without an emergency ration of tea or coffee. !!!! (that was a long time ago, way before I ever even dreamed of a Jeager...but you get the point!)
 
Ugly Sauce said:
Hey...maybe the idea, if it's a very serious emergency, is to smoke them both, put your head between your knees, and kiss your butt goodbye. ?
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I was always taught to do that if you or the water and see a tornado heading your way. Minus smoking the Js.
 
I keep a first aid kit in all of my vehicles including my ATV. Never had to use anything besides bandaids so far. However, back in November of 79 I lost one of my mentors to a heart attack in the mountains of Colorado. There was nothing in the first aid kit that would have helped. He had taken me under his wing because my parents were divorced, plus, his son and I were close friends. He had taken me and his son to old Mexico bird hunting twice and this was my second trip to Colorado with them. We had been up to around 9000 feet that day. Boyd wasn't feeling good and went into our tent to rest after dinner. Later he complained of chest pains, and I finally convinced him to go to the doctor and get it checked. We were 14 miles from the nearest blacktop and 25 miles from town. He never made it out of the tent before he grabbed his chest and said, "Boys, I'm not going to make it". That was it. He died right there in camp at the age of 59. His son was a cop and started CPR and I gave him mouth-to-mouth, but we never got him back. I had to drive out to the highway before I could get anyone on the cb. First responders came but couldn't move him until the coroner came. We sat around the campfire for 3 hours waiting. Now every time I see a campfire I think back to that night on the mountain 44 years ago.
 
Yeah I've used some emergency med stuff and called for help a few times.

Most medical stuff was the basic booboo type stuff. Benadryl for a potentially life threatening be sting.

I've called for help out in the woods for a few instances:

Found a dead guy in the snow while snowmobiling. That was interesting. He had pitched a tent in the middle of the road. Animals did a number on him. Turned out to be a guy evading law enforcement. Dispatch thought I was joking. Nope, just a dead guy you guys should probably come look at...

Had a lady fall off a horse and got kicked in the scuffle. She was pretty sure she had internal injuries of some kind and, not being willing to take the chance, we activated EMS. Fire fighter dudes created their own road with chain saws and such. Was impressive. She was actually fine, just bruising.

Had a lady drive a snowmobile off a literal cliff. The turn was there, she just didn't see it. Bounced off some trees on the way down. We all suspected back injury and activated EMS. Blood from nose and ears, pupils different sizes. Search and rescue guys, fire fighters, flight crew all responded. We laugh about it now but at the time the search and rescue crew... Needed a lot more training...

Another time I had returned from a day of snowmobiling to discover EMS waiting for their snow machine to give them a ride to a crash that was reported a few miles away. We offered to give EMS a ride and the search and rescue guys could catch up. Got EMS to location and ended up assisting with CPR. The guy didn't make it. Search and rescue almost caused two additional injuries arriving at the site and looking to be helpful.

As a youth on a backpacking trip, a freak snow storm over took us. It was bad enough that we couldn't see so we made camp on the side of a mountain. Using an oversized tarp I had decided to bring last minute we put all of the kids under shelter. We consumed 6 days of food in just under 3 days. We made the call, but because of our location, we had to continue on out. I was worried about a few of the guys but we did our best and everyone mad either out okay with one helluva story to take home.

I spend a lot of time without cell reception up in the woods and I've run into some strange situations.

I encourage people to not take unnecessary risks even if it feels dumb.
 
We all carried some emergency stuff when we were hunting. We never had to use any of it though. The only instance one of us needed serious help was when my Uncle and his 14 year old daughter went coon hunting and he was trying to shake a coon out of a tree and lost his grip and fell.

He broke his back when he hit the ground and could barely move. He spinal cord was still intact but was numb from the brake down.
His daughter went running to get the truck, she didn't know how to drive and it was a large Ford 250, with a 460 and manual transmission. It was already in 4wd so She drove it into the woods just ran over anything in her way until she got to her Dad.
He was a big man, and she was a skinny little thing, about 70lbs, but she managed to get him in the cab of the truck.

She then rammed the truck back out of the woods and drove home.

When she got there and started up the driveway, she layed on the horn the whole way to the garage and her mom came running out.
They called the ambulance and got him to the hospital where he spent the next two weeks immobilized. She definitely saved his life that day.

The truck was all beat up but no one cared about that. We were just amazed that she was able to get him out of the woods and drive that truck home.

We all laughed at her and told her she had the right truck for the job. She said she would put it in gear and hit the starter and the truck would start and go. She couldn't work the clutch so she would just let up on the gas, yank it out of gear and grind into the next one.

Medical kit didn't do any good that time but you just never know.
 
tightgroup tiger said:
We all carried some emergency stuff when we were hunting. We never had to use any of it though. The only instance one of us needed serious help was when my Uncle and his 14 year old daughter went coon hunting and he was trying to shake a coon out of a tree and lost his grip and fell.

He broke his back when he hit the ground and could barely move. He spinal cord was still intact but was numb from the brake down.
His daughter went running to get the truck, she didn't know how to drive and it was a large Ford 250, with a 460 and manual transmission. It was already in 4wd so She drove it into the woods just ran over anything in her way until she got to her Dad.
He was a big man, and she was a skinny little thing, about 70lbs, but she managed to get him in the cab of the truck.

She then rammed the truck back out of the woods and drove home.

When she got there and started up the driveway, she layed on the horn the whole way to the garage and her mom came running out.
They called the ambulance and got him to the hospital where he spent the next two weeks immobilized. She definitely saved his life that day.

The truck was all beat up but no one cared about that. We were just amazed that she was able to get him out of the woods and drive that truck home.

We all laughed at her and told her she had the right truck for the job. She said she would put it in gear and hit the starter and the truck would start and go. She couldn't work the clutch so she would just let up on the gas, yank it out of gear and grind into the next one.

Medical kit didn't do any good that time but you just never know.
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I really liked that story!
Don't mess with a country girl!
 
tightgroup tiger said:
We all laughed at her and told her she had the right truck for the job. She said she would put it in gear and hit the starter and the truck would start and go. She couldn't work the clutch so she would just let up on the gas, yank it out of gear and grind into the next one.

Medical kit didn't do any good that time but you just never know.
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Who says you can't float gears in a synchronized transmission 😎

Got to love what a daughter will do for their DAD! Thanks for the story.
 
Was on a multi day fly fishing trip in the Wind Rivers Wilderness east of Pinedale on the continental divide with a buddy. We hiked in about 16 miles (1.5 days at a relatively slow pace).

He decided to pass a kidney stone one morning. Nothing I , or the contents of our med kit could do for that issue. He spent the better part of a day withering in pain inside his tent.

Next day he was good as new. We fished for 2-3 more days and came back out without incident.
 
Boy those kidney stones things are painful. I passed one at work one time. My first cousin had a kidney stone attack on the first day of buck season out in the woods. We took him out on one of our four wheelers and got him to the hospital. They blasted it with ultrasonic and he was back in the woods that afternoon against our advise.

When I was a youngster and just started hunting I was sitting in a clearing, and their was one branch that was sticking in my field of view. You know the one, the one that is just annoying as hell. First thing in the morning and I got up to cut the limb off with my knife.
There was ice all over it and when I went to whack it one, the blade skated back the branch and the tip of it cut the web loose between my thumb and first finger.

All I had on me was a rag I was going to use to wipe my hands off with if I got a deer and cleaned it. I wrapped my thumb to my hand with the rag and between my teeth and other hand managed to get a knot tied in the ends.
I kepted hunting because i didn't want to miss anything but I never gave thought to having to clean and drag out a deer with a hand like that. Thankfully I didn't get a deer that day.

That was on a Friday and I left it tied up like that until I got home and the following Monday went to the doctor.
Somehow, I don't know how, but it never got infected and even though he couldn't sew it shut at that point because I waited to long, I never had any problems from it, it just had to heal from the inside out.

I carried an emergency pack while hunting or camping ever since. Now I feel really paranoid without one. I need to update the one in my truck come to think of it.

I also carry charcoal hand warmers in that same pack in my truck for an emergency heat source. They are hard to find now.
 
Check your 1st aid kits for zip-ties.

I have kits like these in each of my vehicles:

I was working on my Jeep and cut my hand on something sharp. I attempted to get a bandaid out of my 1st aid kit only to find the dang thing zip-tied closed!!! Who's dumb idea was that?
 
tightgroup tiger said:
I also carry charcoal hand warmers in that same pack in my truck for an emergency heat source. They are hard to find now.
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I'm not familiar with "charcoal" (??) hand warmers, but the iron-oxide (?) ones are everywhere around here. Kind of a "comfort item", but also they could/can certainly stave off or delay hypothermia, in some situation where you could not make a fire, or fail to. (and I say again, learn to make friction/primitive fire, and you will always be able to make one with matches or a lighter) Keeping one's hands and feet warm will make a difference as far as keeping one's core temp up, and placing them over your kidneys, speaking of kidneys, is a good trick. But in my own experience, if your hands and feet are warm, you will be warm. So yeah, always in my kits, always some in my pack.
 
These,

I never heard these called iron oxide hand warmers.

My family all carried them in Pa in hunting season. small, light and like a little furnace. One stick lasts about 4-6 hours depending on how well the case seals up.

I carried two of these and we used to put them in the kidney pockets on our coats. They were over our kidneys so the hand warmer would warm up our blood and warm us all over.
There is an indentation in the mouth of the lid on one end only, That's the bottom end, it's the air intake and if you don't let it draft up through, it will keep going out on you.
 
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