Training Log Archive: CleverSky

I don't do much magazine reading these days, but I did read Bob Reddick's article in the new O/NA about Ken Lew's rescue at the WRC, and I'm quite appalled. I'm not putting (much) blame on the organizers here, it sounds like they did a fine job, but I'm instead blaming the victims. The first point of blame come from the notion of their being out there at all, since the article makes it sounds like they were not at all up to the demands. Yeah, everybody admires doddering old people getting out in the woods, but this again brings up the notion we've discussed about requiring them to have a shadow. Nobody wants to tell old people that they're too feeble to participate, and I don't know how you could get away with even trying, because you'd get accused of age discrimination, but this sort of thing makes you sympathetic to the European events that require medical approval before you can orienteer. But then look at the timeline. Bob says they were planning on being back at the hash house at 8 PM, and they were apparently looking for #70 before it got dark. But then with the bailing out, the crawling, Ken's fall, and the lifting of the log to get him unstuck, somehow it gets to be 1:30 AM by the time they started trying to open the bag to get the cell phone. From the description, it sounds like they were within 500 meters of the road at that point. Too far for Bob to crawl, I guess, though I suspect that Pat wouldn't have let him leave. But somehow, once they got through on the phone, instead of just saying that they were between #20 and #70, he read off (incorrect) GPS coordinates to the rescue crew, which sent them on a wild goose chase, and they didn't get found until 6:45 AM. That's probably 5.5 hours after Ken fell, and nearly 11 hours after they had intended to be at the hash house. With that kind of delay, it's a damn good thing that Ken wasn't actually hurt. One lesson here is that in an emergency, text messages are better than voice calls, though I have no idea if any of these people knows how to do that. It does say something about the terrain (for those who weren't there) that in order to carry Ken out on a stretcher, the SAR people had to use chainsaws to cut a path. Maybe they just had the chainsaws and wanted to use them. That might also explain the fact that Pat got washed with poison ivy soap, despite there being no poison ivy. I am glad to hear, at least, that these three have decided to give up rogaining. I hope I have the sense to quit before I get myself into that kind of mess.

C • They should have given up a... 3