12-17-2003, 02:14 PM
[crazy]This past weekend was the last weekend for deer hunting here in NY. Our Fire Dept. was called out on a rescue call for a hunter who was late returning home.It was just before dark and the search was just getting under way and it was snowing hard. We had to work fast to in hopes of finding the person. The search area was about 3/4 of a mile into the woods uphill. The team set out doing a grid search in the area of the persons tree stand. It wasn't 10 minutes into the seach when he was found only a little bit of his red coat was visiable through the snow. We were lucky to find him but his luck had run out. He was laying on the ground dead of a massive heart attack, his gun still loaded. We couldn't move him until a total investigation was done by the State Police and a ME To pronounce him dead.We didnot leave the scene until 10:30 that night. Our dept. has a Polaris ATV four wheel drive capable of carrying three people and 1000 pound payload. My firefighters had to make a dozen trips into the wood carrying equipment and police investigators. We were also able to carry the body out. We purchased this AtV just for such problems. It takes the work out of such an unhappy job and saves our firefighter from suffering the same fate as that unfortunate hunter.
The point here is don't hunt alone or let others know the area that you plan to spend the day in. Carrying a cell phone is great but does no always work in mountainous terrain. Be safe your family will appreciate it .
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The point here is don't hunt alone or let others know the area that you plan to spend the day in. Carrying a cell phone is great but does no always work in mountainous terrain. Be safe your family will appreciate it .
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