Modern technology. A rider in need of help

[junkmanjoe]

This story from america.
A young lady Erica went on a road trip on a Gs 650. she borrowed her friends spot tracker.

she had a nasty off on gravel road and damaged her bike...
she was a day away form any help. so used the help button on the spot.
is sends a help message every 5mins for a hour. Have a read from the story on ADV.
this a great pull from adv riders in america offering to drive for days to help her out....
the story below is from adv.
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I just spoke with Erica.... she's fine, the bike's Jesse rack is in need of some help, but an ADV inmate is meeting up with her who happens to be some sort of fabricator so she's in good hands and should continue to roll.
I'll let her tell the rest of the story, there's plenty more, but she was very surprised to see the sheriff come rolling up late last night... and then ADV riders who have found her today who drove 100's of miles to come help.
The outpouring of support is truly impressive, I guess we're not all FF's without a heart...


As for the SPOT... here's what happened.

At 9:31 local time she hit the SPOT help button, which immediately sent out a text message to my Dad (I had forgotten to change that part on the account) who immediately called me. I logged onto the SPOT shared page and saw the help message and where she was. It didn't look like a good place to be in trouble. So while I was looking for the local sheriff's number another HELP message came through. I called the sheriff and explained what a SPOT was and gave them her coordinates.

SPOT sent out a HELP every 5 minutes for an hour. She will have to explain if she turned it off or it ran the batteries out....

They called me back to tell me that a different sheriff was responding due to her location. The new one called me and I shared the SPOT shared page via email with them - they didn't have the road she was on, on their map.

The Sherriff dispatcher used the SPOT shared page to direct the rescue team to her. It seems that it took about 3 hours for them to get to her, as they told me it would. The dispatcher said if this was a medical emergency they would send a chopper... and would have been there very fast. I told them not to, knowing she would have hit 911 if she was hurt.
They did find her and called me to inform me of that.


At the end of the day, Erica's fine, the bike will ride on, SPOT worked great, and ADVrider.com has proven once again to be filled with kind people ready to help a fellow rider at a moments notice.
I think some of the suggestions of a SPOT help thread type of thing should be discussed over in GPS or JM, or Trip Planning...
I don't want to turn her RR into a SPOT discussion really, but I'll be damned if this isn't a perfect example of why everyone should be carrying a SPOT when riding... she would still be walking to get help without it...
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JMJ

[CookMySock]

Cool.

Steve

[johannvr]

Spot, Spidertracks, PLB's & EPIRBS - getting easier to get lost or have a mishap & come out OK the other side - a good thing, but is it making us complacent and dependent on technology? I hope not.

[CookMySock]

is it making us complacent and dependent on technology? I hope not.

I think once people have wrecked a knee or an ankle, they will forget all about technology saving them and watch themselves next time.

Steve

[junkmanjoe]

i think the most that stands out in this story for me, is that fellow bikers are happy to come help even if there a good days ride or drive away.
if she didnt have it and was hurt quite badly, being by her self. it could have been days or weeks, before some one went that way..
just my thoughts..

JMJ