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SavageLlama
05-12-2005, 23:22
Haven't seen this posted..


Hikers rescue woman on Appalachian Trail
By Ken Garfield
Knight Ridder Newspapers
May 11, 2005

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - (KRT) - Even before the rescue, their hikes along the Appalachian Trail meant the world to four friends from Charlotte, N.C.
Two or three times each year, the buddies from Covenant Presbyterian Church take off from work and spend several days hiking and camping along one of the most spectacular trails God ever made. Their goal is to walk the entire trail in segments before they're too old to finish.

Alan Kuester, Henry Lafferty, Toney Mathews and Wade Cantrell come to these hikes with different careers, aspirations and ages. But once they start walking, they leave behind their differences and the occasional disappointments that mark life in the real world. It's just four friends and a brotherhood that makes their backpacks seem as light as a feather.

No wonder, then, that a cold rain on April 22 could do little to dampen their spirits.

They were somewhere near Fontana Village in the Great Smoky Mountains - "Gosh, it's pretty up there!" Kuester said - when they first saw her. She was sitting on the edge of a slope along a narrow part of the trail, her backpack on the ground beside her, her legs covered in mud.

It didn't take an expert outdoorsman to realize Carolyn Bowers was in trouble.

Bowers, 61, is a mother of two and grandmother of three from Alexandria, Va. She retired in May 2004 from her job as an auditor with the Environmental Protection Agency.

At that point in life, some of us take up knitting.

An avid walker, Bowers decided to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone - some 2,100 miles from Georgia to Maine. The plan was for her husband, Chad, to meet up with her along the way with supplies and support.

Her adventure began March 29 in Georgia.

It ended around 10:30 a.m. April 22 in the North Carolina mountains, 90 minutes into her walk that morning. Picking up her pace because it had begun to rain, she slipped in the mud on a downhill part of the trail, fell and hurt her left arm when it became tangled in the straps of her walking pole.

Right away, she knew it was probably broken.

She had been sitting there five or 10 minutes - her arm throbbing as she grew more nauseous and blew on a whistle for help - when she laid eyes on four men coming down the trail.

"They just materialized right there when I needed them," Bowers said, recalling exactly what she said to the four strangers who didn't remain strangers long. "I said, `Excuse me, I have a serious problem here. I think I broke my arm.'"

The group's response?

"He (Kuester) told me they were four Presbyterians," Bowers said. "I guess to let me know they were nice guys."

The pleasantries out of the way, Kuester, Cantrell, Mathews and Lafferty sprang into action.

With lightning and thunder giving them cause to hurry, they got her into dry clothes, fashioned a splint out of a couple of sticks, gave her ibuprofen from her backpack for the pain, picked up her 33-pound backpack, put their arms around her and began walking to the nearest shelter.

"Alan stayed right with me," Bowers recalled. "He held onto my coat in case I slipped."

It took them 90 minutes or so to walk nearly three miles back to the shelter from which Bowers had come - "a little lean-to in the middle of the woods," Kuester said. The weather grew worse as they walked.

Once at the shelter, the help continued.

Fearing hypothermia, they got Bowers into dry clothes, put her in her sleeping bag, gave her ibuprofen, made her hot tea and hot noodles and re-splinted her arm with the help of other hikers they met at the shelter.

Cell phone service is spotty at best on the trail, but Mathews managed to get through to park rangers to relate what had happened and to tell them to come quickly.

Two rangers reached them that night and spent the night in the shelter with Bowers, checking her blood pressure and other vital signs and making sure she was OK before taking her out the next morning.

She went to the hospital and then home, where she's on the mend. She hopes to walk the trail again.

The four buddies said goodbye to Bowers that night when they knew she was safe. In all, the men from Charlotte and the grandmother from Alexandria were together maybe three or four hours, tops.

It wasn't long enough for her to learn all the guys' names.

But it was long enough for everyone involved in the rescue to appreciate what it meant.

Bowers, who describes herself as a believer but not much of a churchgoer, said it was as if someone were watching over her.

"It just seemed so perfect," she said. "I needed help, and they just came at the right time. I couldn't have asked for more, really."

Kuester said he was humbled by the chance to show kindness to a stranger, and humbled, too, by the timing.

Surely other hikers would have come along, seen a woman in trouble and stopped to rescue her. But they saw her first. They were the ones given this opportunity to turn a hike among friends into something more.

Surely it didn't just happen that way by chance.

"Who knows how that works?" Kuester said.

However it worked, there's a group of four buddies who will never forget one hike along the Appalachian Trail in late April.

And there's a woman on the mend in Alexandria who will never forget four men who embodied the kindness of strangers and who showed her what it means to be saved.

"She said she'll have a soft spot in her heart for Presbyterians now," Kuester said.
- - -

TakeABreak
05-13-2005, 00:03
It is amazing how god plans things isn't it. He knew she was going to be there and in trouble and sent four guys on a hiking trip to help her, not one, not two, but four.

neo
05-13-2005, 00:05
touching story,i am glad she will be fine:cool: neo

Rifleman
05-13-2005, 00:31
touching story,i am glad she will be fine:cool: neo Darn right touching. It shows that there's hope for this world!
I am Responsible.
Rifleman

Ridge
05-13-2005, 00:33
I'm glad this had a good ending. I wonder if she was an experienced hiker?

The Hog
05-13-2005, 06:06
Sometimes Trail Magic is a little more than cold beer, a little more than glazed donuts...

java
05-13-2005, 09:28
Nice story. Glad to hear that everything worked out alright. I'm sure she'll be back on the trail soon.
That said, it's just another reason not to use wrist straps on hiking poles. I don't care what Leki says! I've heard of so many injuries because people fall and their poles get in the way so their hands can't break their falls.
I lost a pole on a bad fall off Katahdin, but at least I didn't get hurt because I was able to get my hands down.

TOW
05-13-2005, 10:42
Haven't seen this posted..


Hikers rescue woman on Appalachian Trail
By Ken Garfield
Knight Ridder Newspapers
May 11, 2005

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - (KRT) - Even before the rescue, their hikes along the Appalachian Trail meant the world to four friends from Charlotte, N.C.
Two or three times each year, the buddies from Covenant Presbyterian Church take off from work and spend several days hiking and camping along one of the most spectacular trails God ever made. Their goal is to walk the entire trail in segments before they're too old to finish.

Alan Kuester, Henry Lafferty, Toney Mathews and Wade Cantrell come to these hikes with different careers, aspirations and ages. But once they start walking, they leave behind their differences and the occasional disappointments that mark life in the real world. It's just four friends and a brotherhood that makes their backpacks seem as light as a feather.

No wonder, then, that a cold rain on April 22 could do little to dampen their spirits.

They were somewhere near Fontana Village in the Great Smoky Mountains - "Gosh, it's pretty up there!" Kuester said - when they first saw her. She was sitting on the edge of a slope along a narrow part of the trail, her backpack on the ground beside her, her legs covered in mud.

It didn't take an expert outdoorsman to realize Carolyn Bowers was in trouble.

Bowers, 61, is a mother of two and grandmother of three from Alexandria, Va. She retired in May 2004 from her job as an auditor with the Environmental Protection Agency.

At that point in life, some of us take up knitting.

An avid walker, Bowers decided to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone - some 2,100 miles from Georgia to Maine. The plan was for her husband, Chad, to meet up with her along the way with supplies and support.

Her adventure began March 29 in Georgia.

It ended around 10:30 a.m. April 22 in the North Carolina mountains, 90 minutes into her walk that morning. Picking up her pace because it had begun to rain, she slipped in the mud on a downhill part of the trail, fell and hurt her left arm when it became tangled in the straps of her walking pole.

Right away, she knew it was probably broken.

She had been sitting there five or 10 minutes - her arm throbbing as she grew more nauseous and blew on a whistle for help - when she laid eyes on four men coming down the trail.

"They just materialized right there when I needed them," Bowers said, recalling exactly what she said to the four strangers who didn't remain strangers long. "I said, `Excuse me, I have a serious problem here. I think I broke my arm.'"

The group's response?

"He (Kuester) told me they were four Presbyterians," Bowers said. "I guess to let me know they were nice guys."

The pleasantries out of the way, Kuester, Cantrell, Mathews and Lafferty sprang into action.

With lightning and thunder giving them cause to hurry, they got her into dry clothes, fashioned a splint out of a couple of sticks, gave her ibuprofen from her backpack for the pain, picked up her 33-pound backpack, put their arms around her and began walking to the nearest shelter.

"Alan stayed right with me," Bowers recalled. "He held onto my coat in case I slipped."

It took them 90 minutes or so to walk nearly three miles back to the shelter from which Bowers had come - "a little lean-to in the middle of the woods," Kuester said. The weather grew worse as they walked.

Once at the shelter, the help continued.

Fearing hypothermia, they got Bowers into dry clothes, put her in her sleeping bag, gave her ibuprofen, made her hot tea and hot noodles and re-splinted her arm with the help of other hikers they met at the shelter.

Cell phone service is spotty at best on the trail, but Mathews managed to get through to park rangers to relate what had happened and to tell them to come quickly.

Two rangers reached them that night and spent the night in the shelter with Bowers, checking her blood pressure and other vital signs and making sure she was OK before taking her out the next morning.

She went to the hospital and then home, where she's on the mend. She hopes to walk the trail again.

The four buddies said goodbye to Bowers that night when they knew she was safe. In all, the men from Charlotte and the grandmother from Alexandria were together maybe three or four hours, tops.

It wasn't long enough for her to learn all the guys' names.

But it was long enough for everyone involved in the rescue to appreciate what it meant.

Bowers, who describes herself as a believer but not much of a churchgoer, said it was as if someone were watching over her.

"It just seemed so perfect," she said. "I needed help, and they just came at the right time. I couldn't have asked for more, really."

Kuester said he was humbled by the chance to show kindness to a stranger, and humbled, too, by the timing.

Surely other hikers would have come along, seen a woman in trouble and stopped to rescue her. But they saw her first. They were the ones given this opportunity to turn a hike among friends into something more.

Surely it didn't just happen that way by chance.

"Who knows how that works?" Kuester said.

However it worked, there's a group of four buddies who will never forget one hike along the Appalachian Trail in late April.

And there's a woman on the mend in Alexandria who will never forget four men who embodied the kindness of strangers and who showed her what it means to be saved.

"She said she'll have a soft spot in her heart for Presbyterians now," Kuester said.
- - -
There are many stories along the trail like this one. Yes there is a God and I believe He sends Trail Angels like these four men along to give us a wake up call......wanderer

weary
05-13-2005, 12:49
There are many stories along the trail like this one. Yes there is a God and I believe He sends Trail Angels like these four men along to give us a wake up call......wanderer
The ways of God are truly mysterious. He sends four men to rescue a hiking grandmother. Yet allows innocent babies to die daily in accidents. And does nothing when periodically thousands of "believers" are killed by others with slightly different beliefs.

Weary

Moon Monster
05-13-2005, 14:32
I agree about the risk of using pole straps. I've heard stories of hikers on their backs with their arms pinned underneath still in the straps like a bug unable to flip over.


I'm glad this had a good ending. I wonder if she was an experienced hiker?

Even experienced hikers can take bad spills in mud.

Dances with Mice
05-13-2005, 14:52
The ways of God are truly mysterious. He sends four men to rescue a hiking grandmother......and He made sure they had a cell phone!

RockyTrail
05-13-2005, 15:25
The ways of God are truly mysterious. He sends four men to rescue a hiking grandmother. Yet allows innocent babies to die daily in accidents. And does nothing when periodically thousands of "believers" are killed by others with slightly different beliefs.

Weary"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord.
Isaiah 55:8

gr8fulyankee
05-13-2005, 15:30
One again the religious nuts must preach and preach and preach.
Funny how people pray to the cross, it never helped Jesus any!

Pencil Pusher
05-13-2005, 15:57
...and He made sure they had a cell phone!
...and He also made sure they had good enough reception to get the call through! ;)

Dances with Mice
05-13-2005, 19:17
...and He also made sure they had good enough reception to get the call through! ;) I hope they walked out of the hearing distance of other hikers. I wouldn't want these Samaritans to ruin anyone else's wilderness experience!

Since they did have a cell phone and knew how to use it, could this rescue have been the work of the Devil?

yellowsun
05-13-2005, 21:25
I am starting the trail June 1st and ending August 1st. I need to be at Sundace and to my tribes Pow Wow then back to college...I have always done long term Camping with other's...This will be my first time alone with great anxiety...Because I think it's dangerous for the reasons in the article to go it alone...I hope and pray I meet up with people I can hike with...I am on the tread ten miles a day and uphill training...I am no spring chicken and my hippie days in the bus and crazy camp outs are over but I really need this hike.I am hoping maybe I can hook up with someone even before I leave...I live in Ct and plan a Southbound hike...That woman was kinda lucky...I wonder if I had gotten dysentary alone camping in the Ozarks if I could of made it out of the forest...
Things to really think aout...Sad her husband wasn't or couldn't go with her.:-?

weary
05-13-2005, 21:30
I am starting the trail June 1st and ending August 1st. I need to be at Sundace and to my tribes Pow Wow then back to college...I have always done long term Camping with other's...This will be my first time alone with great anxiety...Because I think it's dangerous for the reasons in the article to go it alone...I hope and pray I meet up with people I can hike with...I am on the tread ten miles a day and uphill training...I am no spring chicken and my hippie days in the bus and crazy camp outs are over but I really need this hike.I am hoping maybe I can hook up with someone even before I leave...I live in Ct and plan a Southbound hike...That woman was kinda lucky...I wonder if I had gotten dysentary alone camping in the Ozarks if I could of made it out of the forest...
Things to really think aout...Sad her husband wasn't or couldn't go with her.:-?
There are many, many people on the trail--99 percent of which are very friendly, helpful people. Serious accidents are rare. If one occurs someone will quickly be coming by willing to help -- with or without God's help.

Weary

Smile
05-13-2005, 21:32
What a wonderful story! His ways are not our ways......

Rifleman
05-14-2005, 02:37
One again the religious nuts must preach and preach and preach.
Funny how people pray to the cross, it never helped Jesus any! August70,
Welcome to the South. Now leave your daughter and go home (NH)!
Cordially,
Rifleman

P.S. You got it exactly backwards--the Carpenter helped us!

Heater
05-14-2005, 04:16
There are many, many people on the trail--99 percent of which are very friendly, helpful people. Serious accidents are rare. If one occurs someone will quickly be coming by willing to help -- with or without God's help.

Weary
Exactly.

It was the middle of April... Gimme a break!

She might have been found by any of the multitude of Pagans, or others, hiking the trail within a few minutes time. They would have given her the same attenton and comfort that these christians did.

No matter what the religion... Most of the AT hikers will be good souls.
I am not opposed to any beliefs but I am opposed to zealots. That article just strikes me as touchy feely fluff. Propaganda.

I would be willing to bet that the religious beliefs are WIDELY varied among the hikers on the AT. Christians of any particular denomination might very well be in the minority. I think that the article might be very insulting to the many people with different beliefs.

JMHO...

oldfivetango
05-14-2005, 07:19
Exactly.

It was the middle of April... Gimme a break!

She might have been found by any of the multitude of Pagans, or others, hiking the trail within a few minutes time. They would have given her the same attenton and comfort that these christians did.

No matter what the religion... Most of the AT hikers will be good souls.
I am not opposed to any beliefs but I am opposed to zealots. That article just strikes me as touchy feely fluff. Propaganda.

I would be willing to bet that the religious beliefs are WIDELY varied among the hikers on the AT. Christians of any particular denomination might very well be in the minority. I think that the article might be very insulting to the many people with different beliefs.

JMHO... GOD forbid that anyone in America be offended by the religious or political
views of another! Let's have a constitutional amendment about offensive speech or just eliminate article one altogehter.
Cheers,
Oldfivetango

Hammock Hanger
05-14-2005, 19:25
It is amazing how god plans things isn't it. He knew she was going to be there and in trouble and sent four guys on a hiking trip to help her, not one, not two, but four.
ABSOLUTELT!!! Amen. Sue/HH

Moon Monster
05-14-2005, 20:35
How many of you are out there hiking on the AT expecting that you'll be helped within a "few minutes" if you suffer a bad injury? Even in April in NC or Tenn., you could be several hours and many miles from the nearest hiker who'd come accross you--especially late in the day when folks are converging on campsites. You could be 16 hours from help. It's irresponsbile to start hiking expecting help is only minutes away. It'd actually be pretty special if someone gave you help very soon after you broke a bone in hypothermia-type weather.

And by the way, that's all this article is really saying--that Bowers thinks something special about the men who helped her.

orangebug
05-15-2005, 15:30
I had the impression that the guys saying they were Presbyterians was as meaningful as the guy who said he stayed at the Holiday Inn Express last night.

It is a nice story and a compliment to the 4 guys and the other unnamed hikers and medics who assisted with the rescure. It was also a compliment to her for having the smarts to carry the whistle and to recognize the severity of her predicament. The posts about Lekis and cell phones are red herrings.

If you really want to get carried away by the Presby thing, let us discuss whether her injury was predestined and she should have stayed at home with her family. I think not.

TakeABreak
05-16-2005, 06:15
Please don't anyone take offense, but For those of you who do not believe in god, I truely feel for you. Like I said please do not take offense I know it hard to do with kind of a comment.

But there have been way too many times in my life where I was in a really bad situation and said something to the affect, god i am in a real bad situation here and need your help, and it appeared from no where.

There have been times to where I decided to go somewhere and change directions or use a different road for reason out of the blue, and there was someone who needed, and when i got to talking to them, I found out that asked god for help out about the very instant in made change in direction, or chnage routes for no apparent reason. I even decided to go somewhere once, which was an hour away for no apparent reason, just out of the blue. 45 minutes into my hour trip, I came across a coulpe in their late fifties setting on the side of the road and no one would stop to help and it was a brisk sunday afternoon.

Yeah god could have sent someone earlier but how do you know he didn't burden someone else to stop and they ignored him. Like I have said, there have been to many times in my life where he has helped me or used to help others true in need. I believe in god, I prayer many times a day and thank him many times a day. I think we as americans have a lot to be thankful for, just for living where we do.

Thanks HH/SUE : )

rickb
05-16-2005, 07:23
I suspect if they had been 4 buddies working together at Jiffy Lube they would have told the woman so.

Were that the case, she might have developed a soft spot for mechanics?

Rick

rickb
05-16-2005, 07:38
"I think we as americans have a lot to be thankful for, just for living where we do."

Yup.

Having walked through more than a few slums around the world, some with little kids living alone on the streets not a block from my comfortable home, I am thankful indeed. Not sure why God gave me my good life and why he gave so many millions of others such wreched ones, however.

Probably because I am an American and deserve it more.

Rick

weary
05-16-2005, 09:50
My life has had many twists and turns. Bad situations have frequently turned around. What I worried might be dumb decisions often have worked out okay.

In retrospect, there are things I would not do the same. But I sense the world -- well at least the town where I live and Maine -- may have a somewhat better protected environment because I lived and made the decisions I have made.

I suspect I've spent more time than most thinking about and pondering religion. I have yet to see any convincing evidence that God interferes in the daily lives of humans.

And if God does indeed interfere, the interference is based on a logic that is totally foreign to the mind that God provided me with.

I've been reading a semi autobiography -- "A Patch of Fire Weed," by biologist Bernd Heinrich, who taught at the University of Vermont for a quarter century.

He tells of a very religious student who was reluctantly convinced by his courses that some of her religious beliefs dealing with evolution could not be true, and how upset she was that she could no longer hold those very comfortable thoughts.

Heinrich writes he was sorry to have upset the student. But that the evidence was overwhelming. "Evolution is simply history," he writes, or words to that effect.

BTW, Heinrich has written seven or eight natural history books dealing with observed phenomenon in Vermont and Maine that I highly recommend. I buy very few hard cover books. My rule of thumb is to wait for a paperback or for books to show up on the remainder tables. It's my theory that if a book is worthwhile it will still be worthwhile a year or two, or 10 down the road.

But I can't resist buying each new Heinrich offering as it shows up at my local bookstore.

Weary

digger51
05-16-2005, 22:10
As a bumper sticker i once read said, "If you dont believe in God you better pray you are right"

gr8fulyankee
05-17-2005, 20:04
My life has had many twists and turns. Bad situations have frequently turned around. What I worried might be dumb decisions often have worked out okay.

In retrospect, there are things I would not do the same. But I sense the world -- well at least the town where I live and Maine -- may have a somewhat better protected environment because I lived and made the decisions I have made.

I suspect I've spent more time than most thinking about and pondering religion. I have yet to see any convincing evidence that God interferes in the daily lives of humans.

And if God does indeed interfere, the interference is based on a logic that is totally foreign to the mind that God provided me with.

I've been reading a semi autobiography -- "A Patch of Fire Weed," by biologist Bernd Heinrich, who taught at the University of Vermont for a quarter century.

He tells of a very religious student who was reluctantly convinced by his courses that some of her religious beliefs dealing with evolution could not be true, and how upset she was that she could no longer hold those very comfortable thoughts.

Heinrich writes he was sorry to have upset the student. But that the evidence was overwhelming. "Evolution is simply history," he writes, or words to that effect.

BTW, Heinrich has written seven or eight natural history books dealing with observed phenomenon in Vermont and Maine that I highly recommend. I buy very few hard cover books. My rule of thumb is to wait for a paperback or for books to show up on the remainder tables. It's my theory that if a book is worthwhile it will still be worthwhile a year or two, or 10 down the road.

But I can't resist buying each new Heinrich offering as it shows up at my local bookstore.

Weary

Weary
As an agnostic I respect what you have said here.
Also I love your town! I drive to Hermit Island every year. My family has been going there since my father was a kid when they first opened the Island for camping some 53 years ago.

LIhikers
05-18-2005, 17:55
During last summer's section hike in Pennsylvania my wife and I played a small part in the rescue of a rock climber. It's quite a humbling experience once you have time to reflect on it. No matter what the motivation is, it's nice to know that you've made the world a better place for someone else. And when things go better for the person you've helped it has a ripple effect on everyone around them. So in the end you've done something good for a lot more people than you'll ever know about.