Carry Survival Equipment in Vehicle !

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Barbara
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Carry Survival Equipment in Vehicle !

Post by Barbara »

This story of an elderly Utah man is a good reminder to everyone to assume that anything could happen at any time and therefore to carry along all needed survival equipment and food in case of being stranded as he was.
This man did have water with him which is difficult to store in a vehicle when temperatures are regularly dropping below freezing.
There is surely some solution for this. But not cans of soda which will freeze and possibly explode.

Food should be stored inside GLASS CONTAINERS, not plastic ones. One has to plan ahead to choose types of snacks like nuts high in protein which would also keep well if frozen [ that is actually good for nuts to put them in a freezer ].

I carry a shovel in case of needing to dig out tires. I don't know if that would have helped this man in his predicament, as he told a Utah TV station that he was stuck in 14 or 15 inches of ice, snow and snowpack on a road which is not maintained in winter.

Moral of the story : don't go off the road on a lark in wintertime !

Second moral of the story : never depend upon a cell phone to save you when traveling.
Instead, pray to God while utilizing common sense
!

Note that the man does not say in these media accounts that he requested God through prayer to help him, but merely that he felt God's assistance in this ordeal.


"A 77-year-old Utah man who was stranded for two days in the snowy Southeast Idaho mountains credits a higher power for his survival.

After his rescue on Wednesday, Paul Meiling went back to his West Jordan, Utah, home to his family and countless well-wishers. In an interview on Thursday...[ he said he ] believed God was by his side as he struggled to survived.

“I may have been stranded, but I wasn’t alone up there,” he said.

It all started on Monday with a trip to Pocatello. Meiling, a collector of historic memorabilia of the American West, came to town to donate a stack of old books regarding the subject to Idaho State University. In the early afternoon, he filled his 2010 Toyota Tundra with gas.... then headed back home by traveling south on Interstate 15.

On the way, he decided to take a backcountry side route in northern Oneida County. An avid fly fisherman, Weilling had fished the Daniels Reservoir multiple times and felt he knew the area around the fishing hole well enough to take a scenic route.

He exited I-15 at the Arimo exit, traveled through Robin and headed down Sheep Creek Road. His plan was to follow the roads leading to Malad and then get back on I-15. However, when he turned on the isolated Dairy Creek Road, his truck got stuck in the heavy snow.

At that point, Meiling found himself stranded in an isolated area with no cell phone service.

“It was a side journey, but nobody knew where I was, and that was the problem,” he said.

A partially retired rural real estate appraiser, Meiling always kept some survival gear in his truck just as a force of habit. Luckily, as the temperatures dropped to below freezing on Monday night, he had crucial survival gear at his disposal, including water, gloves, a parka, extra socks, boots and matches.

“Take away any one of those items and the end of my story changes,” he said.

Not far away from his stranded vehicle sat an abandoned 1910-era structure, which he used that evening to serve as a temporary shelter. He dug a small pit in the floor and used plaster and wood planks from the walls to build a fire.

During the times he was bunked down in the cab of his truck, he ran the vehicle heater for 30 minutes, then turned the ignition off for approximately an hour or so to help preserve gasoline.

On Tuesday, the situation was becoming more desperate for both Meiling, his family and searchers in both Idaho and Utah. At this point, the family grew concerned about the possibility that Meiling might have been the victim of foul play.

Meanwhile, with a snowstorm and even colder temperatures on the horizon, Meiling took a desperate step — he set the structure he had found the day before on fire in the hope that somebody in the distance would see the smoke in the sky and come to his rescue....

It was around this time that he said he really started to feel the hand of God reaching down to help him during this ordeal.

When the structure fire failed to attract any attention, he found a second abandoned dwelling nearby. To his surprise, he found a stack of coal when he walked through the back door of the structure. He used the coal to start a small campfire that kept him warm for almost 12 hours during Tuesday night’s frigid cold spell.

“It was nice to get coal for Christmas," he laughs. "I believe that coal was put there for my use, and who knows how long it was there."

When the sun rose on Wednesday, Meiling decided to take .... action...despite being cold, tired and dehydrated, he started walking back down Dairy Creek Road.

Meiling marched for approximately five miles through the snow before he found a location with cellphone service in southern Bannock County. When the bars on his phone appeared, he quickly called his son Jeff. Ironically, Jeff was only 30 minutes away in Malad, participating in the search for his father.

Before long, Meiling was rescued....He was checked out by medical personnel and transported back home to Utah for a reunion with his family. Despite two days in the mountains battling a snowstorm and below-zero temperatures, doctors said he was dehydrated but otherwise healthy."

http://idahostatejournal.com/outdoors/x ... 842fb.html

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Barbara
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Re: Carry Survival Equipment in Vehicle !

Post by Barbara »

The Sheriff said in an interview that Mr Meiling had a candy bar with him. Apparently only 1, however !
This is a reminder to keep food in one's vehicle, in fact in every season.

In my opinion, snacks should be enclosed in a GLASS jar. I have learned over years that plastic will crack in the cold or heat. Worse still, plastic breaks down under the temperature extremes and may leach out chemicals into the food.

A better alternative to too-sweet candy is perhaps a Kind bar, which has usually nuts and dried fruit. This would provide protein as well as a more natural form of sugar for quick energy. These are sold in most stores of any type now, including gas stations. So consider stashing a bunch of your favorite type of Kind bar or any other healthy food such as organic nuts.

Again, though, glass is the best container. Otherwise, nearby mice might be tempted to get into the food, hence causing distress and dismay when one opens up their cache of emergency rations ~ ! They and other pests surely can get through plastic bags in a jiffy, so that option for storing food in a vehicle is firmly out.

The only good kind of commercial food storage container widely available is this Rubbermaid type :

Image

A variety of sizes and shapes, all BPA-free, can be seen here :

http://www.rubbermaid.com/en-US/glass-w ... -find-lids

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Barbara
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Re: Carry Survival Equipment in Vehicle !

Post by Barbara »

I was told by a fearless driver in snow that it's smart to carry along a large bag of CAT LITTER. This is to create traction
while one is digging the tires out of mud or snow. Otherwise, the tires will only spin without something to latch onto.

There may be other possibilities but this seems the simplest and least costly.

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