Leave your vehicle and die

[Bushbasher Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Bushbasher]

A 35 year old truckie perished near Wiluna on the weekend. He was taking a load to the Jundee minesite but it appears he missed the turn-off just outside Wiluna and continued along the Gunbarrel for about 50km. He then attempted to do a u-turn but the truck got bogged. He then decided to try and walk back to Wiluna. Temperatures in the mid to high 40s.

Reinforces the need to stay with your vehicle, be prepared for remote travel, utilize shelter and conserve body energy, and tell someone where you are going and when you are expected to arrive at destination and when you are expected back at home.

[ntp Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close ntp]

Re: Leave your vehicle and die

Another example of why EPIRBs should be standard kit for anyone travelling in remote areas.

Do you carry an EPIRB?

Our Prado has a personal EPIRB (PLB) in the glovebox at all times - which we can carry with us when bushwalking too. The best thing with an EPIRB is that they are pretty failsafe. Evenif you are injured, the EPIRB can easily be operated by a child or another with little instruction.

See also: Lost in the Outback

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Re: Leave your vehicle and die

Death is an awfully hard way to learn a lesson

While we don't carry an EPIRB we never head bush without our satelite phone, just seems a bit more versatile to me. Even travelling on main roads its always good to know that you can be in contact in an emergency when out of normal mobile range. You don't need to be in central Australia to be remote either, Sunset National Park is 30kms from my front door and i consider this to be one of the most remote places we have ever been, due to the lack of other travellers.

Good advise Bushbasher.

Cheers Andrew

[Bushbasher Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Bushbasher]

Re: Leave your vehicle and die

Worksafe are now investigating the death. No doubt they, and the coroner, will make recommendations about carrying compulsory comms equipment and both the trucking company and minesite will have to revise their work practices.

EPIRBs are more suited to boaties. PLBs (Personal Locating Beacon) are for land lubbers, and the latest GPS equipped GME PLB is probably the best. Or you could buy SPOT that allows you to send updates to email accounts. All good so long as someone will check their emails to see how you're doing or you can simply hit the panic button and wait for the cavalry to arrive. Satphones can experience connection hassles and brown-outs due to weather. They are expensive to operate although not a bad choice when you hire one for that big trip. Oh, don't forget to pack the satphone car charger.

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Re: Leave your vehicle and die

Satelite phones have the added advantage that when you are standing on the top of Mitchell falls and it's 32 degrees you can call your mates back home who are working outside in the rain when it is only 9 degrees :twisted:

We hire ours out to friends a couple of times a year which covers our yearly plan, up front cost was a bit, and we dont make many frivilous calls, so call costs are not much either.
So long as we have clear access to the sky reception has not been a problem.
We also keep both the car charger and the mains charger for the sat phone in the Prado all the time, mains charger can be used through the inverter if the car charger stops working.

Cheers Andrew

[baglimit2002 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close baglimit2002]

Re: Leave your vehicle and die

know what you mean had a the personal experice myself found some poor japanese bugger

[Bushbasher Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Bushbasher]

Re: Leave your vehicle and die

Now it seems he was only a few hundred metres from a big pool of rainwater. There was some rain up there beforehand and the water is still there - I went up yesterday and there are big puddles everywhere.

[two+four Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close two+four]

Re: Leave your vehicle and die

Heard on the ABC news in the car on the way home, three German tourists were rescued on the CSR today. Apparently they were over due at their destination so a search plane flew the route and spotted them. They were then rescued.

The report said they had become bogged and at least stayed with their vehicle. So they did some things right but still other things wrong.

I have been checking the news sites but I cannot find the story in print

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Re: Leave your vehicle and die

Heard on the ABC news in the car on the way home, three German tourists were rescued on the CSR today. Apparently they were over due at their destination so a search plane flew the route and spotted them. They were then rescued.

The report said they had become bogged and at least stayed with their vehicle. So they did some things right but still other things wrong.

I have been checking the news sites but I cannot find the story in print

Doing the CSR in February :shock: :shock: Lucky to be alive i would think.

Cheers Andrew

[johnsy79 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close johnsy79]

Re: Leave your vehicle and die

Just saw the story on the news. The 3 men were picked up by helicopter dispatched from Kununurra and taken to Halls Creek after a spotter plane saw writing in the sand. The Billiluna storewoman phoned the next place (cant remember the name) to see if they had arrived (they hadnt) so she phoned police. If she had not have done this they would still be out there.

[Matty80 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Matty80]

Re: Leave your vehicle and die

They are very lucky indeed. Still surprises me how many times things like this end up in the news and how often they are not happy endings...

[photoprado Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close photoprado]

Re: Leave your vehicle and die

Worksafe are now investigating the death. No doubt they, and the coroner, will make recommendations about carrying compulsory comms equipment and both the trucking company and minesite will have to revise their work practices.

EPIRBs are more suited to boaties. PLBs (Personal Locating Beacon) are for land lubbers, and the latest GPS equipped GME PLB is probably the best. Or you could buy SPOT that allows you to send updates to email accounts. All good so long as someone will check their emails to see how you're doing or you can simply hit the panic button and wait for the cavalry to arrive. Satphones can experience connection hassles and brown-outs due to weather. They are expensive to operate although not a bad choice when you hire one for that big trip. Oh, don't forget to pack the satphone car charger.

If you're stuck in the boonies, I'm sure an EPIRB will be just as good as a PLB!

Spot has the emergency button as well as the email alerts (and the tracking if you pay the extra fee)

SatPhones don't need to be expensive. They will work with any Telstra SIM (but not a pre-paid) Pays to check operation before you are in an emergency though!

There is a new Spot gadget on the way called Spot Connect. - It syncs with your smartphone for all the usual Spot functions and has outgoing (short) ad hoc text/email messages as well. Spot Connect

Michael

[Schaffer Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close Schaffer]

Re: Leave your vehicle and die

SatPhones don't need to be expensive. They will work with any Telstra SIM (but not a pre-paid) Pays to check operation before you are in an emergency though!

I thought you needed Global Roaming enabled for your SIM in order to use the Telstra SIM in a Sat phone. I know poeple who have done it and can confirm it works but was under the impression you needed Global Romaining enabled.

[photoprado Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close photoprado]

Re: Leave your vehicle and die

SatPhones don't need to be expensive. They will work with any Telstra SIM (but not a pre-paid) Pays to check operation before you are in an emergency though!

Throught you needed Global Roaming enabled for your SIM in order to use the Telstra SIM in a Sat phone. I know poeple who have done it and can confirm it works but was under the impression you needed Global Romaining enabled.

Not in my case, but global roaming is easy and no-cost option anyway, can't hurt. Perhaps it would be required if you went overseas with your satphone...

All I did was to go down to the Telstra shop and buy a $10/month casual SIM. Plugged it into the SatPhone and walked into the front yard. Worked. Worked in Outback SA and anywhere else I tried it. Call costs are high, but this is an emergency device and really, you could make a few calls and not nearly approach the costs of a satphone plan which 'keeps on giving' even when its packed away waiting for the next trip.

Michael

[photoprado Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close photoprado]

Re: Leave your vehicle and die

Also, casual SatPhone call charges for SIM cards.

http://www.telstra.com.au/customer-term ... ilesat.pdf

Skip the reams of mumbo jumbo and go to section 6.8

Be aware that I'm telling you this because it worked for me. If you want to try it, test it in a non-emergency situation first, preferably somewhere outside mobile coverage and close to safety. Spend $6 ringing home for a minute or so but also familiarise yourself and others with the operation of the handset. Do carry emergency numbers with the phone, you don't want to be calling directory assist at these rates!

Michael