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I Should Have Died...


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Just saw some interesting posts over in the coin forums about near-death experiences while caching so I thought it might be cool to hear yours, too.

 

The closest I've come to buying the farm was a headfirst fall into a deep creek when it was only 20F out and at least a mile hike through snow and over some icy waterfalls to the road. Luckily, my caching partner and I were prepared and he shared some of his dry gear with me until we could get to safety. I know you've got a better one than that though so let's hear'm B)

Edited by fox-and-the-hound
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When I first started caching, I always went alone, even on long hikes. B)

 

One Sunday, I was out with a friend and his two kids, because I thought they would enjoy the "treasure hunt."

 

Just after hiding a new cache in a location the kids helped me find, I dislocated my kneecap. B)

 

If that had happened on one of my long hikes when I was alone -- without a cell phone -- well . . . B)

 

And, speaking of ticks. A couple of weeks ago we were attacked by them. B) One member of our group attracted 23 of them! B) B)

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1162294d-d353-486a-879e-fdbc8401ba56.jpg

 

Two miles into a four mile hike, I took a spill. I headed back to the trailhead with a couple of others while most of the rest of the party continued the hike. When the rest of the party arrived, we cached our way back to town. Yes... there was an ER visit to take care of but.... we DO have priorities you know B)

 

End Result, all three bones in the arm were broken, one of them twice B)

 

The picture above was taken a two weeks later... as I attempted a hike on Mount St Helens.

Edited by Right Wing Wacko
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Just saw some interesting posts over in the coin forums about near-death experiences while caching so I thought it might be cool to hear yours, too.

 

The closest I've come to buying the farm was a headfirst fall into a deep creek when it was only 20F out and at least a mile hike through snow and over some icy waterfalls to the road. Luckily, my caching partner and I were prepared and he shared some of his dry gear with me until we could get to safety. I know you've got a better one than that though so let's hear'm :mad:

 

No geocaching story, but when I was fourteen years old I was walking home at night, an eight mile journey, (I did those things back then) and the temps had dropped below freezing. I stepped into a not-yet-frozen puddle that went over the top of my boot. After about five minutes I started to get worried. First there was pain, then nothing. Luckily I found a payphone and my mother sent me a taxi. (at 14 you don't call your own taxi, especially when your family doesn't have money)

 

That taught me that even in the city you have to be prepared. You never know the circumstances.

 

I drive 35 miles to work. In someplaces it's a two mile walk to the nearest house, what happens when it's below freezing and a 20 mile an hour wind? Do I want to walk that in dress shoes and dress pants?

 

Carhart's, wool socks, wool hat, wool blanket, matches and plently of other survival items that I hope to never use.

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I've had some nasty slip and falls. All of which would have won us the grand prize on America's Funniest Videos. Luckily, no broken bones yet.

 

Worst fall was a slip and slide down a muddy embankment. I even had my trail shoes and walking pole. They didn't help at the time, but have saved me since in other instances.

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I have searched for caches all over the USA, in southern India, and in Germany and Nicaragua, and a number of the US caches had Terrain ratings of 4 or higher; a number qualify as extreme caches. I have also placed many caches in extreme places. Because of geocaches, I have climbed cliffs, hiked backcountry wilderness for miles on end, crawled on the understructure of abandoned railroad bridges over 80 feet above river gorges, crawled under highway bridges, crawled in caves, hiked for long miles at 9,000 foot elevation, craeled in tiny dark tunnels under busy highways, and crawled in storm drains and swamps (in one swamp up to my thighs in mud and goo) all across the USA. Other than scratches from brambles/briars, I have never had an injury. Closest I ever came was just a couple of miles from home. Sue and I were hunting an old legacy backcountry cache, dating back to early 2001, located in the mountains near our wilderness home. The cache is located just next to a rattlesnake den (technically within the den area) on a mountaintop with a heavy population of black bears. While at the cache site, I sat down on a big rock -- only after checking the surrounding area carefully for rattlesnakes -- to tie a loose shoelace on my running shoe, and discovered a beautiful female rattlesnake under a small ledge, just five inches from my right shoe and hand, rattling furiously. I apologized to her and removed my hand and my foot from her territory.

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Geez. Some of these stories are really bad! I hope Archerino has fully recovered. Gawd.

 

I didn't nearly die but I did manage to shatter my right leg on a 1.5 terrain hike to find a geocache about 1/2 to 1 mile in the woods.

 

If I could find the guy who didn't help me he might be near death however. :D

Edited by Nerves
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She had that come slither look.

 

:D

 

We have a story involving my younger son, a large animal hole with tree roots running through it, and a shoe we never did get back.

But no one came close to dying. (Although my other son did ask a couple of times "if we can't get his foot out of the hole, do we have to just leave him here?")

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1162294d-d353-486a-879e-fdbc8401ba56.jpg

 

Two miles into a four mile hike, I took a spill. I headed back to the trailhead with a couple of others while most of the rest of the party continued the hike. When the rest of the party arrived, we cached our way back to town. Yes... there was an ER visit to take care of but.... we DO have priorities you know :D

 

End Result, all three bones in the arm were broken, one of them twice :D

 

The picture above was taken a two weeks later... as I attempted a hike on Mount St Helens.

 

Right wing Wacko is my new personal hero :D

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Pit viper gender can typically be determined at a glance, by the shape of the tail. Short & stubby vs. long & slender.

 

Yes, this is entirely true. I have been catching and handling native American snakes, including pit vipers, all my life, and I often know reflexively after a first glance if a snake is a male or female from the shape of the body just forward of the cloaca and the size/shape fthe tail at and behind the cloaca. And, in any case, as someone else has already guessed, she had that "come slither" look.

 

Besides, she was a total hottie. No mistake there! :D:D:D

Edited by Vinny & Sue Team
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The closest time i have ever had was once while finding a fairly easy geocache that was about 2 miles from the road i was on but little did i know that there was a closer road but any way i hiked the two miles got mad couldnt find the cache and decided the follow a road which i thought connected to the one i was on previously but the road actually put me about six miles from my vehicle and it was almost dark!! so i had to hike all the way back!! not too much of a dangerous thing but the most dangerous one i have had so far!!

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:rolleyes:

Doing a cache on a pretty little back road.. Chased down the coord's to a really old rock wall... Now mind you I grew up in the country... so Rattlesnakes I know... and I know that they love rock walls... but not being in an area I was filmilar with... and so excited about finding another Geocache... I was cacheing with Whitetail39&travler13 and whitetail yelled snake... just as I heard the buzz.. talk about freaking... here is a link to their post with pics

Snake

 

Did I mention... that I hate rattlesnakes?

 

But we all got away without injury... just made me realize... can never get to excited when caching and always carry a stick.

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so that was a boy he had the long rattle?

 

Please, if you were not joking about the long rattle,allow me to say that the length of the rattle on a rattlesnake has nothing to do with its gender. Rather, the salient visual cues for gender are those which were disclosed by Clan Riffster and myself, and NOT the length of the rattle. In fact, the length of the rattle is related only to the age of the snake, and more precisely, to how many times it has shed its skin since being born.

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no i wasn't kidding someone posted above about the length of the tail.. i thought they meant the rattle part. just trying to learn something here..

 

Okay! No, when we mentioned the shape and length of the tail, we were not referring to the rattle, but rather to the tail, which starts at the cloaca and goes back, terminating in the rattle, which is just dead dry material, much like a fingernail which has grown beyond the end of the finger or toe. The body of a male snake will appear rather slender in front of the cloaca, and his tail will taper gracefully and gradually to a point. A female snake, on the other hand, will look "fat" just in front of the cloaca, and the portion of her tail just behind the cloaca will be much more slender, and thus instead of the gentle and gradual taper in the cloaca region exhibited by the male snake, the female snake will seem to suddenly get far more slender, abruptly, just behind the cloaca; it might help if you envision a four-lane highway suddenly reducing to a width of only two lanes -- that is what a female snake will look like in the region of the cloaca. This is even more pronounced if she is gravid (carrying eggs or babies.)

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thanks for explaining this. i have camped and been in the outdoors hiking all of my life and never have been closer than about 20 feet to a rattler. have watched them at a distance only. now geocaching and realize i will need to be more vigilant as caches live where these creatures do. are males or females more likely to strike? when she is carrying is she more protective and reactive?

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thanks for explaining this. i have camped and been in the outdoors hiking all of my life and never have been closer than about 20 feet to a rattler. have watched them at a distance only. now geocaching and realize i will need to be more vigilant as caches live where these creatures do. are males or females more likely to strike? when she is carrying is she more protective and reactive?

 

I really do not know the answer to your question regarding whether willingness to strike varies across gender of rattlesnake or whether the female is gravid, and I do not know if anyone knows. However, in general, rattlesnakes are somewhat more aggressive than copperheads, which are every private and reclusive and a bit shy. We have a female copperhead who lives under our stone steps (we live in the wilderness), and she has wilingly posed for photos and allowed me to put my camera within 5 inches of her face when she is sunbathing, and was totally calm about it. As far as rattlesnakes, a lot of people claim that the Western Diamondback is more aggressive and more willing to strike than many other rattlesnakes found in North America. My own feeling and my experience (and I have caught rattlesnakes, many times, with my hands) is that rattlesnakes really just do not want to be bothered, and will only strike if they feel cornered or extrmely scared or alarmed. And, even when they do bite a human, many of the bites are non-productive bites, aka "defensive bites", meaning that the snake injects little or no venom but bites just to scare you off; pit vipers can control whether they inject venom during a bite or not. I was bitten once by a rattlesnake (on the finger), and while I ended up in the hospital, it was not life-threatening.

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Hiking in the woods of the Laural Highlands of PA this past New Years Day I was trying to get across a valley to cross over the opposite hill. Didn't think anything about any hunters being in the area as the etire area was posted as a Safety Zone. Climbed the opposite ride and jumped off a small cliff only to land right next to some guy with his gun trained right on me! Didn;t say much except "Don't Shoot" and high tailed it out of there.

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One time on my way back to the car after finding a cache, I took a nasty twist on my ankle. I made a jump and landed on a clump of weeds where I couldn't see the ground. I landed on an irregular patch of dirt and BAMB! My food felt like was on fire with pain. I was alone but was lucky that I had my walking stick/staff to lean on. I managed to hobble back to the car and drive myself back home. After that, I was limping around for almost three weeks before I could walk without pain and it was MONTHS before I could twist or use the leg to do any serious hiking...

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thanks for explaining this. i have camped and been in the outdoors hiking all of my life and never have been closer than about 20 feet to a rattler. have watched them at a distance only. now geocaching and realize i will need to be more vigilant as caches live where these creatures do. are males or females more likely to strike? when she is carrying is she more protective and reactive?

 

I don't get caught up with gender issues when it comes to snakes, exspecially if they rattle. :lol: RUN AWAY. :unsure: But while on the subject, I think female snakes pack a wallop, based on my research with other species. :unsure: Happy Trails >>> STRIDER

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While I was searching for GCJ8DW a 1 star difficulty, 2 star terrain I came very close to injury. This is along a paved trail. We (my spouse, myself, my 6 year old son, my 5 year old son, my 3 year old daughter, my newborn son and my dog rusty) were walking long the trail and I was looking at intently at my GPS as we got closer to the cache when the world went out from underneath me. My legs were dangling free and I felt myself clawing for ground as I started going deeper and deeper. I had fallen in a sink hole. Luckily I fell in and not my kids or my dog and when I went in my leg had caught a root from a tree which probably kept me from falling in. When I managed to get the dog and kids back I dragged myself out of the hole and looked down. It looked like it was 8 to 10 feet deep and I don't know how firm the ground below that was. To this day I don't know if someone camo'd that hole or I was just to focused on my GPS screen to notice but I did see other people coming on a return trip along the trail stop and look at the hole so it my have been camo'd. I was a little shaken so I didn't try to find the cache that day and about a week a later when I went back to find that &&$$ cache I noticed that the hole had been completly filled and there was no mountain of dirt in the spot. (Had brought a camera and was going to take a picture of the sink hole.) Found the cache about 50 feet from the sink hole. Scarey with the kids and dog but in the end it worked out ok. Guess I learned to look at environment more than my GPS !!

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Well I don't know if it would have killed me, but I should have gotten worse! Fox (in the pict) was working his way across the top of the ledge while I was climbing parallel along the face working up to that ledge beneath him when I lost my grip :lol: and plunged off the edge. Luckily as I started to fall I was able to turn and leap further away to a spot clear of rocks and pretty steep. Thank goodness I only fell about 10 or 12 feet. I ripped my jacket and crushed my swag bag, but my knee held up after just a year from surgery :huh: . Lesson relearned: falling hurts and cache with a partner.

 

ledge2.jpg

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I've had incidents that have basically killed my pride and ego...

 

There was one by a historical marker sign. I was going to replace the cache, but I forgot the sign was there. I came up to fast and banged my head on the sign. I ran my hand on the back of my head, and it was covered in blood. I hightailed it to the nearest doctor's office, only to find out it wouldn't even need stitches. I could just tell the doctor wanted to laugh as hard as he could. Heck, I would have laughed at myself too.

 

This happened this weekend:

 

Was looking for a cache, but the bees(I'm not the biggest fan of them by any stretch) were flying around the bushes. I decided to try to find at another time, and I was walking back to my car. I was on a concrete gutter, slipped, and twisted my ankle. After a few moments of blinding pain, I was able to get in the car and drive from Tuscaloosa, AL to Birmingham to visit my parents. All in all, I was left with a swollen and sore ankle for the weekend.

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Amazingly enough, except for pulled muscles and aching feet, both me and my wife (both, er, rather clumsy) have gotten through 72 caches so far without any injuries. Any slips have been minor normally not resulting in falls. I have now, of course, jinxed the both of us :)

 

We did have a scary time out doing a night cache. It was a multi and we'd done half of it the night before. So we went before dark and hiked back into where we'd finished off. Apparently, hunting was allowed and there were quite a few hunters in the woods. Was enough gun shots to make us extremely nervous. I think this is the only time I really had any fear for our safety (and was my own stupidity!).

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recently:

 

Found it... but not without incident. I have never logged a find for a cache that I didn't sign the logbook, but I'm going to for this one. Let me preface my story by saying that I've got a significant amount of country boy in my blood, and I've been around livestock most of my life. I love cattle. I parked at the gate within about 150 feet of the cache. Bos taurus mugglus was down in the corner of the field and didn't concern me. I was more worried about being spotted and/or harassed by the folks across the street, since I was parked just across from their drive. I worked my way down to the cache site, keeping an eye out for the beef muggle. He and I made eye contact, and he started towards me. I've been around cattle since I was a little kid, and have had my share of run ins with the male of the species. So I was wary, but confident. Just as I spotted the cache, I heard the approaching thumping of a running bull. I looked up and he was charging me. I left the cache there and turned to face the oncoming bull. It was just a bluff charge, as he stopped short of me. However, for whatever reason he woke up on the wrong side of the pasture, or didn't like the cut of my jib. He stood there stomping and snorting, and I retreated. I assume this is not ordinary behavior for the old boy or odie wouldn't have put the cache here. Regardless, I was outweighed by 1000+ lbs, and a bull can be a tempermental beast. I hope nobody ever gets hurt here.

 

PS... I am only assuming he was a bull. I didn't stick around to inspect and see if he retained all of his hardware. His behavior was consistent with that of a bull, though.

 

Thanks for the cache. I dind't sign the log.

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thanks for explaining this. i have camped and been in the outdoors hiking all of my life and never have been closer than about 20 feet to a rattler. have watched them at a distance only. now geocaching and realize i will need to be more vigilant as caches live where these creatures do. are males or females more likely to strike? when she is carrying is she more protective and reactive?

 

I don't get caught up with gender issues when it comes to snakes, exspecially if they rattle. :( RUN AWAY. :( But while on the subject, I think female snakes pack a wallop, based on my research with other species. :( Happy Trails >>> STRIDER

 

I'm sure you know this, but it's not wise to run away. It's best to back up slowly, always making sure you can see the snake, and what it's doing. Turning your back on it is not a good idea.

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I don't have any SERIOUS caching injuries, but on Saturday I took quite a fall from an urban terrain 5 cache. It's hidden up under a walkway, and I tried to chimney climb up 2 pillars (others have done it before) about 10 feet up, and when I started to come down I slipped and fell right on my rear. I managed to hobble back to the car and go up another time, but then I was too sore to retrieve the cache (and get more than 5 feet off the ground).

 

I WILL get it next time!

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not exactly WHILE caching but... the cache is located across the street from my house and it was almost taken by a tornado on 4-2-06. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...d6-d4af2aac83c9 (pic in log)

 

by the way, Combine is the owner of this cache . he and his family lost everthing in this torando. it destroyed his entire farm shop and all but 3 tractors(which were parked at other locations). his parents house was severely damaged. it will probably be counted as total loss also.

 

i took alot of pictures of the storm(from my front porch) and after it passed. they are at the following link.

 

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/fuzzyz71/alb...m/ph//my_photos

 

they are all unharmed and taking it all very well.

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not exactly WHILE caching but... the cache is located across the street from my house and it was almost taken by a tornado on 4-2-06. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...d6-d4af2aac83c9 (pic in log)

 

by the way, Combine is the owner of this cache . he and his family lost everthing in this torando. it destroyed his entire farm shop and all but 3 tractors(which were parked at other locations). his parents house was severely damaged. it will probably be counted as total loss also.

 

i took alot of pictures of the storm(from my front porch) and after it passed. they are at the following link.

 

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/fuzzyz71/alb...m/ph//my_photos

 

they are all unharmed and taking it all very well.

 

:unsure: Those are unbelievable! Why were you still taking pictures at that point? We're glad to hear you're all ok and it's amazing after seing those photos to know that the cache survived. Wonder what the terrain raiting is for that one now :unsure:

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