70 year old pheasant hunter breaks leg, crawls for 16 hours!

Kismet

UPH Guru
JUST spotted this in a search. I would have been carrion, instead of carried out. :)

January 6, 2016...



MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — North Dakota was the site of a harrowing story of survival, and a persistent father who refused to give up.

Dr. Richard Olsen, 70, broke his leg after falling into a ditch while pheasant hunting last month.

Without the ability to walk, the retired Mayo Clinic pediatrician pushed himself on the ground for 16 hours to find help.

“I had my eyes on the dogs. One minute I was walking and the next minute I was falling, and it happened that quick,” Olsen said. “Almost instantaneously, two thoughts flashed through my mind. That I didn’t have my cell phone, I knew that, and I knew this was going to be really bad.”

Olsen felt his femur break instantly.

“Just to touch it, more screaming. Just the worst pain I’ve felt in my life,” he said.

He used his gun as a crutch, and with his arms and good leg hoisted himself out of 4-foot-deep ditch. And then he fell back in.

“Not only fell in, but the broken leg got lodged between the boulder and the ditch,” Olsen said.

An hour-and-a-half later, discouraged but determined, he was scooting the half-mile back toward the road.

Thoughts of his family pushed him through until the early morning hours.

“About 4 a.m. I could really sense that I was losing ground. I was falling asleep a lot,” Olsen said.

If he was to survive, Olsen needed a new game plan. Only four thoughts could enter his mind.

“If any other thought came, I yelled, ‘No!'” Olsen said. “And the four thoughts were bend your knee, dig in your heel, check to see if your gloves were on and push. And that’s all I let in for the next five hours.”

Around 8 a.m., with frost bite on his fingers and in more pain than he can explain, he made it near the road. A ditch between the field and the road prevented him from getting to his car.

Several cars drove right by him as he waved his hands and yelled for help, until truck driver Bryant Duncan stopped. He provided blankets for Olsen until an ambulance arrived.

“He opened that door and all I did was blubber, but I blubbered, ‘Please don’t leave me,'” Olsen said. “He’s my hero.”

Duncan has called Dr. Olsen daily to check in to see how he is doing. More surgery could still be in his future, but Olsen is expected to walk again.

Olsen is now seeing doctors at Mayo and going through physical therapy there. He says his medical training did help some, but what became critical to survive were his stubbornness and persistence.


and what happened to the dogs?
 
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I just turned 70 myself. About 5 years ago my wife refused to let my go hunting by myself. I find hunting with a group is more fun anyway. I used to hunt turkey and deer a lot but no more. At 70 I don't miss it much but I won't miss my yearly trip to South Dakota to pheasant hunt with the guys.
 
Just turned 80 a week ago...

Fell in December; flat on my face, with the left shoulder hitting rock or stump. Looks like a rotator cuff tear - still in the diagnostic stage, will know more this Thursday. I did, however, have several other hunters with me, although none saw the fall.

Can't imagine what the Dr. went through attempting to climb out of the ditch et al...one lucky fellow.

Yes, what happened to the dog?
 
Why wasn't this guy carrying his cell phone with him?? :confused: I'll be 72 in April and when hunting alone I always make sure I have a fully charged cell phone with me.
 
Hey JB and Zeb maybe us old guys should get together and have a hunt next season. Hell we could split the cost of Emts to follow us around
 
Seems like I'm falling more...and enjoying it less! This time I never saw it coming and I was down.

Yes, would welcome a Medic to join us on a hunt.
 
Cell phones are fine as long as you are in an area with cell phone service.

That is true Steve. But cell coverage gets better every year and it's still better to have the phone with you than not.
 
Just turned 80 a week ago...

Fell in December; flat on my face, with the left shoulder hitting rock or stump. Looks like a rotator cuff tear - still in the diagnostic stage, will know more this Thursday. I did, however, have several other hunters with me, although none saw the fall.

Can't imagine what the Dr. went through attempting to climb out of the ditch et al...one lucky fellow.

Yes, what happened to the dog?

Epilogue: Rotator cuff tear - front shoulder.

OK - Feb. 8th. Cortisone shot in the shoulder today. Surgery postponed for six months as I'm taking Plavix (blood thinner). Had an artery blocked - 95% with subsequent stent installed. All this due to a fall, during the hunt! Didn't know pheasant hunting can be so dangerous...
 
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Dakotazeb, my wife made me get and carry a cell phone and use the find friends app so that if I don’t come home from hunting on schedule she can track my location.
 
I'm 68, have a worthless right ankle and sometimes still find myself hunting by myself. Last year I stepped in a badger hole and fell forward, my left foot (the good one) toggle-locked into the hole. I could not budge it. Luckily, the stars were aligned and I was hunting with a friend. He ran over to me, thinking I had a heart attack. After we got that resolved we started analyzing my situation. The first thought was for him to walk back to the truck and get a shovel and try to dig my foot out, but we would have had to dig through almost 2ft of very hard ground and it was getting dark. My friend finally decided he could get to the laces on my boot and cut them, which allowed me to slide my foot out of the boot and out of the hole. No damage done, but had I been by myself I would have likely been coyote bait by morning if I didn't have some means of calling for help. Thank the lord for a patient, resourceful friend!

For the last five years or so I not only carry my cell phone, which would only help in areas where there is reception, and there are many that do not, but I also carry an emergency locator device. There are a number of brands available, including ones that allow you to talk or text. Mine is a simple "SPOT" and it sends a satellite request for emergency assistance, with my location, to a regional emergency response facility, which (hopefully) will get that information to the local responders. It also can send a pre-written request for assistance to a list of email addresses for non-emergency assistance. Should I ever have to use it, it will be expensive, but better than dead. That "SPOT" never leaves my hunting pack, where the cell phone does, and like the Dr., I may forget (an unfortunate tendency as we get older).
 
At 66 with a "fake" knee I feel like the kid. Every day I wake up and do the short list-what doesn't hurt. After reading this I think I will break down and at least get a cell phone. But what about the dog?
 
In my case the dogs were very happy to keep my face "moist" while we struggled to get me out of the badger hole. They finally gave up and watched quietly but you are correct, what about the dog(s). One would hope that eventually they would find a road or other civilization and someone would realize that they and their human were in trouble. Mine wear collars with my home address and phone number on them so that might help. Unfortunately, in much of the country I hunt folks drive the back roads like they are freeways and dogs are in mortal danger. Only once in over 60 years of upland game hunting have I had someone stop and check on me. A deputy sheriff in northwest Kansas had noticed my pickup on his trip by in the morning. When he came back in the afternoon it was still there. He parked and waited (because he could see someone walking in his direction) until I came back to the vehicle. Had he met only dogs he would have initiated a search and rescue, but in those many years that was the only time. Pretty much we and our dogs are on our own.
 
Hope I can crawl that long when the time comes. :p
 
Another option is to have a devise called SPOT Tracker. Every 20 minutes a signal is sent to satellites for tracking, this shows up on a website for people to follow. There are 3 buttons on the device first you can send signal manually for tracking, second button indicates you are having difficulty but ok and the third is the 911 button which also will dispatch emergency help automatically.
If you are hunting far away from home an additional service called med jet will transport you home.
 
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