The survival instinct was alive and well in 2011. With Mother Earth clearly in an apocalyptic mood, people found ways, often against seemingly impossible odds, to survive earthquakes, volcano eruptions, hurricanes, tornados and tsunamis. Tales of wilderness survival – stories involving the injured or lost hiker who braved the elements long enough to talk about it another day — were also well represented.  To pick SOL’s Top Seven Survival Stories of 2011, we turned to Dr. Chris Van Tilburg, editor of Wilderness Medicine magazine and a long-time member of Oregon’s Hood River Crag Rats Search and Rescue Team.

I spend a ton of time backpacking and hiking the outdoors and there are two pieces of equipment that are with me on each and every trip: an Adventure Medical Kits Weekender and an Adventure Medical Kits Suture Syringe Kit. Both proved invaluable on my most recent adventures to the Wrangell — St Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska.

Read below climber Paul Warman’s first-person account on how Adventure Medical Kits’ Heatsheets Emergency Bivvy helped save his life and that of a friend, after the two had become stranded near the summit of British Columbia’s Bugaboo Spire.

Hello,

I would like to take a moment to give a heartfelt thanks to you guys. If it wasn’t for your HeatSheets Emergency Bivvy, we would not be here today.

Click image to view video of climber Paul Warman's rescue near summit of Bugaboo Spire.

It’s always gratifying whenever we hear that an Adventure Medical Kits’ product has helped someone out of a major jam. Such was the case last April, when we received a call from Mike Mason, who informed us that, thanks in part to AMK’s Thermo-Lite 2 Bivvy , his son Scott was able to survive three chilly nights in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

The younger Mason had been solo hiking near Mount Clay when he hurt his ankle, tried to take a shortcut through a river pass and got lost. Rapidly melting snow had swollen the river, making it impossible to cross and Mason was subsequently forced to hunker down for the next three days, before being found by rescuers.

AMK’s Light & Fast Adventurer kit made a cameo appearance on the October 11th broadcast of the hit reality TV series, The Amazing Race. In episode 4, the Adventurer shows up when contestants Zev and Justin arrive at the Shrine Wat Phnom, one of the key pit stops in the show, which this season in set in Cambodia. Though leading at the time, the two realize that they’ve misplaced their passports and if they can’t find them soon they’ll lose the race.

They proceed to empty their backpacks, which is when we see the Adventurer kit, strewn amongst clothes and other items.

Sept 21, 2009

Dear AMK:

Dear AMK,

I am happy to report that your survival kit helped me to survive an unplanned night in Point Reyes this past January. A friend and I went hiking around Abbott’s Lagoon. At the end of the trail, we walked along the beach. It was an overcast, cold day and we didn’t realize how late it was and so it was almost sunset when we headed back towards the trail. It seemed simple enough to follow the beach along until we saw the trail that went around the lagoon. But we got completely disoriented and were not sure where to pick up the trail. We tried to follow close to the lagoon to pick up the trail but this didn’t work (In the morning we realized that had walked to a much further end of the lagoon.) We were lost. And it was already cold.

Congratulations to Team iMoat and AMK’s Kyle Peter on their 6th place finish in the Primal Quest Badlands.

Crossing the finish line!!

The race began on August 14th and Team iMoat finished the race in Rapid City, SD after approximately 7 Days 11 Hours of racing. Congratulations to Team iMoat and Kyle on their incredible race!

Kyle after mountain biking and waiting for his turn on the ropes course.

Comment:

I took an Ultralite .5 First Aid kit and added these Adventure Medical Kit items: 1 person HeatSheets Blanket, Signal mirror, Firestarter, & Whistle.

It is compact, fits easily in a pocket and weighs about 7 oz. Plus it looks cool!

My two cents. Kurt

Response:

Thanks for the comment Kurt! Our Product Development team loves to hear feedback from our customers about how they use our products.  Keep the ideas coming….

If you have a story or product idea to share with us, you can submit the info using this form.

Dear AMK:

I just came back from a ten day surf trip down to Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica and I had to send you some photos because to be honest, my Adventure Medical Kit saved my entire trip. I got the World Traveler kit last summer when I went down to Costa Rica to surf the first time because it was designed for travel to Third World Countries.  This time that kit came in handy as I ended up taking a fin above my eye and getting a minor gash in my forehead.