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Oops...that'll leave a mark!!!

Bear Season was quickly approaching in Colorado and, like most hopeful hunters, I wanted to do a little pre-season scouting. I decided to go out with a small group of friends and family members. On this particular day, we weren't afforded much time so we elected to split up into small groups in an effort to cover more ground. The group that I was in consisted of one family friend, my wife, and myself. I really wanted to take a close look at the state of the vegetation that was growing along a creek at the bottom of a small valley, hoping that some of the Choke Cherry trees might be producing some fruit since bears are attracted to these as a food source during that time of year. As expected, there was a small game trail that was paralleling the creek and, we decided to follow it. My wife wanted to take the lead and she eagerly began walking down the trail. We made it about a half of a mile when, a rock that she stepped on rolled out from underneath her foot. She lost her balance and fell, landing on her side. She let out a loud "OUCH!!" as soon as she hit the ground. I initially thought that she had probably twisted her ankle when the rock rolled or, perhaps she sprained her wrist when she tried to brace herself from the impact. However, neither was the case. She landed on what was left of a small sapling that had been broken off approximately eight or nine inches up from the ground. I am assuming it had been previously broken by an elk or deer that had been using the game trail. The sapling "stump" jabbed her right in between two of her ribs. As it turned out, she was incredibly lucky. The same volume of game traffic that had originally broken off the sapling a few months prior to our trek, also ended up rounding off the top of the stump, thus preventing it from puncturing her ribcage. Had this incident happened a few weeks prior, that same stump may have been sharp enough to penetrate all the way through to her lung. She was a trooper and, even though one of her ribs was clearly bruised, after we cleaned up the scrapes and scratches with some antiseptic wipes, she continued hiking until we eventually ran out of daylight.
Up until that event, I never used to carry "Vented Chest Seal's" in my IFAK. I now not only carry a couple of these but, I've also added some additional Emergency
Trauma Dressings as well. Hopefully I'll never need them but, I never would have guessed that a severe injury had just as much potential for happening during the "scout" as it had for during the "hunt".

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Wow...that was close!!!

It was raining the afternoon that my friend and I decided to turn, and drive down a dirt road that had clearly not seen any traffic in a while. We had only traveled a few miles when it became apparent that we may not have made one of our best decisions in life. The road had not been maintained in quite some time and, seemed to have been constructed out of some type of clay. Our trucks traction was rapidly deteriorating when, we suddenly slipped sideways into a ditch. We were stuck up to our axels and, we weren't getting out without some kind of help. These were the days before cell phones were readily available and neither my friend nor I had one. To make things worse, we were in an extremely remote area and, had not seen a farmhouse for several miles. The last time either of us remembered seeing any signs of civilization was approximately 5 or 6 miles to the southwest of our current location. By the time that we finally stopped trying to get ourselves unstuck and, admitted to ourselves that we were going to have to walk to help, it was starting to get late. We panicked and, eventually elected to walk straight towards the last home that we had seen, instead of following the muddy roads, in an effort to shave off some travel time. Although we did have jackets for cooler weather, we did not have any rain gear in our possession. "Suck it up Buttercup" was the last thing that I remember saying to my friend before we left the truck in the ditch and started walking through the rain and the darkness, across a large parcel of undeveloped land, towards the only potential for help that we thought may exist. Wow did it get dark, wow did it rain hard and, WOW did we get lost. We could barely see a foot or two in front of our faces, we were shivering like we had just fallen into a frozen river and, we must have walked in circles for HOURS!! We eventually stumbled onto a dirt road but, couldn't tell exactly where we were, nor could we see the farmhouse that we were trying to reach. We determined that we must have intersected the road just short of our targeted location and, committed to following the road to the right (believing that we were now traveling due west). After walking an additional 1/2 hour or so, we located a small shed and decided to enter it, in an effort to temporarily shelter ourselves from the rain. It was pitch black inside the shed but, we managed to somehow find some miscellaneous debris and used my friends cigarette lighter to start a small fire. The small flame began to eliminate the inside of the shed and, the warmth that the flame emitted was quite possibly "life saving". We couldn't have been there for more than a few minutes when, we heard the sound of a vehicle outside on the road. We rushed out and began to wave our arms franticly!!! I can only assume what the driver must have thought when his headlights hit us..."What are these two idiots doing out in this rain storm in the middle of the night?". That was many years ago but, my wife and I still laugh every time that I tell someone this story but, if it would have been 10 degrees colder that night...I'm not sure that I would still be alive to share it with you today.

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