Desert Rescue

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On Friday, Gerry, Toby and I set off for the desert. Toby wanted to see how his Nissan Patrol handled in the sand, I wanted to see how much of a difference my new Old Man Emu heavy duty suspension made and we all wanted to sod about in the dunes.

We'd all made it down the saddle and were heading back in the direction of the track that runs parallel to the ridge when we came across a British woman waving her arms obviously trying to get our attention.

Over the brow of the dune, about 15 metres down was a Nissan Pathfinder well and truly suck, side on - the most dangerous way. Going straight up or straight down, you'll never roll a vehicle, but sideways on you are vulnerable. Gerry, being a real off road ninja soon had the stranded car arse end facing down the slope and back on firmer ground a few hundred metres away, but it wasn't an easy recovery, with danger to both vehicles.

They had broken just about every rule. They had gone off into the desert alone. The only recovery equipment in the car was a tow rope - not a lot of use unless you have another vehicle to go with it. They did not know where they were, they had no GPS, maps or a compass. In the vehicle were the couple (late 30s, early 40s), two children and the wife's elderly mother. They did not have any water with them and they had been stuck for about an hour when we came along. There was certainly panic beginning to set in, the old girl was already very tired and upset.

Anyone who has been out in the desert knows how disorienting it can be. To cover the distance you can drive in half an hour would take you 8 - 10 hours on foot, providing you could carry enough water to do it and you had the physical stamina.

They were very lucky that we happened to find them, and that Gerry had the skill and experience to recover the car and get them to a track which lead to the road. To be perfectly honest, if Gerry wasn't there then I might have just put everyone in our vehicles and taken them to the nearest petrol station and let him sort out his own recovery.

They all learned a valuable lesson on Friday, but for the Dad it will be a truly life changing day. For the rest of his life, every time he gets into an argument with his wife, she will bring up the time when he "nearly got them all killed in the desert". While I'm sure he was grateful and a bit embarrassed at the time we turned up and helped him out, I am also sure that at some point in the future when he and his misses are in the middle of a blazing row, she will pull out the "you nearly got us all killed" story, and for a split second he will wish that he had actually just been left to die in the desert.

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Photos

F*cked
At the bottom of the saddle was this abandoned vehicle. It had a spare wheel on the back but it was flat.

Tired?
That's why you have to replace your tyres after two years here - like I've managed to make a tyre last that long.

Comments

[Charles]

schoolboy error
...and not only that but this schoolboy error of off road driving has caused a degree of consternation amongst your readers because they caused you to tell their story rather than finishing the one about the Pathfinder and the OME suspension which had all the promise of a right riveting read!