Rescue protocol

As was perhaps apparent from my last post, Pálmar and I headed out for a little drive this afternoon. We went over to Kleifurvatn, and then stopped at Sultún, before making our way around to Grindavík and then home. A tour guide had told me yesterday that is the route they use for all the visitors going on the Wonders of Reykjanes tour, and although I did it once myself as part of the Viking Congress, I wanted to drive through there again today.

So there we were on a bumpy dirt road in my mini van. When I stopped to take a picture of the lake, I noticed my cell phone had no reception (though it did further down the road). As we crested one particularly steep hill, I began to worry a little bit that this was perhaps not one of my brightest ideas. And then I started wondering what would be the proper response, if indeed something happened to my car while we were out on that little journey.

I think the instinct of many people is to try to walk to find help. But then I have heard rescue workers say the best thing is just to stay put in one place, preferably with your car. The problem with that option is one really has to trust that the rescue workers will come looking, that someone will realize something must have gone wrong, and send help. Now of course if my car just broke down by the side of the road, I could wait around in hopes that another car would drive by eventually. But in the 20 minutes I had been driving, I had not yet seen any other cars. So you can imagine my relief when I finally saw a car come up behind me, and then later another one passed me going the other way.

That part of Reykjanes really is a lonely stretch of road.

Comments

Jon Frimann said…
GSM kerfin á Íslandi eru full af götum, en þú átt að ná allavegan öðru hvoru kerfinu á flestum stöðum.

Á sumum símum stendur bara 112 Calls Only, en á flestum farsímum mun ekkert koma fram eins og t.d á Nokia GSM símum.
March 30, 2010 at 11:23 PM
Anonymous said…
Fóruð þið niður á Selatanga? Bara smá labb og svo þetta líka flotta brim (allavega oftast).
April 1, 2010 at 4:06 PM
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