WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-05-08 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
By Leila Samodien
“I could easily have died if they hadn’t found me today,” an exhausted, dehydrated but relieved Chris Koen told the Cape Argus after his rescue from a three-day ordeal in the Du Toitskloof mountains.
Koen, an astronomy specialist at the University of Western Cape’s Department of Statistics, was found on Sunday afternoon, after rescuers had feared he was dead.
He had set out on a solo hike along a path in the Du Toitskloof mountains on Friday, got lost and spent two nights without food, water, shelter or warm clothing.
| He will spend the next few days recuperating at home, after suffering severe dehydration |
In heavy mist and pouring rain, a large Wilderness Search and Rescue team found him above the Elandspad River at about 2pm on Sunday.
He will spend the next few days recuperating at home, after suffering severe dehydration.
The 59-year-old Edgemead resident was reported missing by his wife, Erica, on Friday night.
A rescue mission was launched in the early hours of Saturday, breaking only for a few hours over Saturday night and Sunday morning.
The head of Wilderness Search and Rescue, John Roos, said Koen was lucky to be alive.
| ‘He spent two nights and three days on the mountain’ |
“He was severely hypothermic and dehydrated, but other wise he was walking and talking,” he said.
“He came out of it in a relatively good condition, considering that he spent two nights and three days on the mountain.”
In an interview with the Cape Argus minutes after being airlifted to safety by a rescue helicopter, Koen explained that although he was an experienced hiker, he often wandered off the designated trails.
In this case, he had been alone and became lost a couple of hours into the hike. “I deviated from the path and instead of walking along the river, I started climbing up the mountain,” he said.
“This is a good lesson to stop me from just walking in any direction that takes my fancy.”
For the entire ordeal, Koen had nothing to shelter him from the cold but a pair of navy blue jogging shorts, grey T-shirt, jacket and a pair of hiking boots.
He had no food or water and no cellphone.
He was forced to huddle against rocks at the top of the mountain on both nights. On Saturday his hopes were given a boost when he spotted a helicopter hunting along a river.
Expecting rescuers not to search the mountaintop where he had been holding out, on Sunday morning Koen made his way to the river, where the search party later found him.
A worried Erica Koen told how she had contacted police when her husband had still not returned home at 10pm on Friday.
“I’m so relieved. I haven’t had much sleep since Friday and our daughter came down from Grahams- town on Sunday when she heard about this,” she said.
Chris Koen said that had it not been for the sterling efforts of the rescue team, he would probably not have been alive now.
“It may seem trivial now because I’ve been saved, but I could easily have died if they hadn’t found me today.
“If the Wilderness Search and Rescue weren’t as amazing as they were in this search, I wouldn’t have made it back – I was just too tired,” Koen said.
The Wilderness Search and Rescue manager for the operation, John Davids, said he was thankful that the rescue mission, which included air and ground searches, had ended on a happy note.
“It was a difficult search because the weather was terrible. What is important is that we found him alive,” Davids said.