After more than a week at BC Wilderness, a man has been rescued thanks to the efforts of Quesnel Search and Rescue and Williams Lake RCMP.
The man was found on the mountain, near a shelter that had created with mud and sticks, about 50 kilometers northwest of Williams Lake, BC, said Bob Zimmerman, president and manager of Quesnel Search and Rescue (SAR).
The man was reported as disappeared in RCMP on July 31 after he was last seen on July 28. Zimmerman said his team first received the incident on August 3.
Quesnel sar first looked for man by air with Pep Air (Provincial Emergency Program Air)A voluntary aviation society. But they had no luck during the first days of the search.
Zimmerman said the initial information around a possible location was quite vague, but rescuers knew he had been traveling in a truck.
“We had to cover a large area to try to sweep that central place,” said Zimmerman, “that’s why we use Pep Air, because to drive on the floor and verify roads with ATV, UTV or vehicles, there are hundreds of kilometers of manageable paths in that area.”
The search equipment also tried to use electronic surveillance to try to connect with any cell phone in the area. That also did not succeed.
Finally, an observer SAR left with an RCMP helicopter team on Friday.
“The observer saw a sun’s sun from the windshield of the truck,” Zimmerman said.
Rescuers found the truck, but not the lost man.
Then, about five kilometers from the truck, the teams say they saw a man standing next to a lake and a great rock with the word “help” written in it.
“I had built a small mud shelter and mud against the great rock,” Zimmerman said.
The man, however, had poor health.
“I was having difficulty standing. I don’t know if I would have done it for another 24 hours without recovering it,” said Zimmerman.
He had no food over him, and Zimmerman said he had been drinking pond water. He had also put the lawn on his clothes to try to get more isolation of the elements, according to Zimmerman.
Zimmerman recommended to others who always have a loaded cell phone or, better yet, a satellite connector.
“If people go out, really the best thing you can do is have something that has a satellite connection for you. Therefore, you can always get a message in a satellite by text message about where you are and what is the problem.”
The man was rescued in the RCMP helicopter and then connected with the ambulance service, said Zimmerman.
“He is a lucky man.”
