SURVIVED IN THE AMERICAN DESERT

by Kyt Lyn Walken

Emergency situations often result from an incorrect risk assessment.
Or, even worse, the absence of a real calculation of them.
An attitude of carelessness can often turn into a prelude to disaster, and it can catch us helpless just when we don’t expect it at all.
Thrown face to face with death, we are forced to fight with the means we have.
Maybe thinking about what we could have with us – in terms of equipment, skills, but also just plain common sense.
This is the case with this story.
A fifty-three-year-old woman is driving down a highway about 100 km from Phoenix. It is raining, and the woman is obviously not used to driving in such conditions.
The road is slippery, and the 53-year-old realizes it too late. A second later he loses control of the vehicle, breaks through the guard rail and takes an almost fatal flight.
Fifteen, infinite meters below, in an escarpment that swallows it.
It lands on a Mesquite tree, which I have personally seen in Texas.
They are a variant of Acacia, and have very resistant stems and fronds.
The presence of the tree saves her, and the woman, with head injuries, broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder, spends the first few days in the wreckage, without any strength.
But you take courage. Thinks. He pulls himself with difficulty out of the crumpled cockpit and sets off towards the railway. He tears up grass and eats it to regain his strength. However, it is not enough.
Falls, collapses after five hundred meters in the dry bed of a river.
On October 18, a farmer and a highway maintenance operator, engaged in the search for an escaped cow, notice the broken guard rail, and struggle their way towards the vehicle.
Also in this case, as in that of Foggerdy in the Australian desert, the reading of the footprints left by the woman was decisive for her safety.
Where the calculation of the risks had resulted non-existent, leading to a disaster, the tenacity to survive of the woman, combined with the readiness of the two souls, led to a happy ending.
Calculation of risks, assessment of hazards, preparation: the steps that precede any undertaking are often the essential ones.
Applying this mindset in everyday life can be an extremely effective help, especially when we have to deal with the unexpected.
Keeping supplies of water and packs of BIVO in the car is a suggestion that many of our customers have already adopted for some time, and of which we are particularly proud.

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