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21 Jan 10

Satmap Story

Active 10 Helps Lake District Rescue!

Last Thursday I was out on a walk in the Lake District with a friend. Whilst traversing the shoulder of a hill I stepped on to an innocent looking slab of rock. Unfortunately for me it wasn't as innocent as it looked! The slimy surface meant that I had no grip on it at all. My outside foot slid into the hillside which meant my upper body went away...very rapidly. The result was that I was thrown off the slab and somersaulted, head first, into the rocks a few feet below.

My head took the full impact and a 6 inch, L shaped, gash was opened up on my scalp. Now I didn't know this at the time, but the scalp has a lot of blood vessels in it. So a 6 inch gash produces a lot of blood. In fact, from my point of view, it was a very scary amount of blood! Clearly I needed to get off the hillside, reduce the bleeding and get to hospital.

First things first, something to reduce the bleeding. The only thing to hand was my favourite, white (but not for very long) rugby shirt. I scrunched it up and pressed it to the wound.

My friend was already on the phone requesting an ambulance. We gave them a rough idea of where we would make our way to and that we would call back with some detailed co-ordinates, courtesy of my Active 10 unit.

Ten minutes later we were back to civilisation and could now check our co-ordinates on the Active 10. I pulled it out of its case, which had been attached to my waist. Oh dear!! The Active 10 had also taken one heck of a blow to the head and had suffered some damage. But wait....had it given up? No it had not! Despite the damage to the top, the Active 10 was soldiering on. Crucially it was still able to display our location co-ordinates.

We phoned the ambulance service back and let them know our accurate location. They quickly found us and whisked me off to hospital where my scalp was sewn back together with 14 stitches.

But what about my Active 10 unit? It deserved some attention of its own.  So, I sent it to the Satmap tech team so they could do the unit proud and restore it to its full glory!

Congratulations on producing the best gadget I've ever bought. I love it.

By Nigel McCann

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