 Just read this on lfto website, might be of interest: THURSDAY: Story of the Week By <a id="_ctl0_placeHolderContainer_placeHolderMainContent_placeHolderColumn02_placeHolderColumn02Body__ctl0__ctl0_lnkAuthor">LFTO News Team</a> Outdoor headlines 03 July 2008 12:45 Teens are rescued from the Dales, Ullswater gets a speed demon, and a friend of LFTO helps open up one of our favourite routes...
Teens rescued after DofE drama
Five teenagers on a Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme expedition who were missing overnight in the Yorkshire Dales have been rescued by an RAF team.
The group failed to turn up at Kettlewell, in Wharfedale, last night, but were located at 9.15am today after a search involving fell rescue teams and an RAF helicopter.
Police said one of the group - a 16-year-old girl from London - had suffered an asthma attack and was also suffering from hypothermia.
The RAF crew which located the group said the teenagers were very pleased to see the helicopter when it found them this morning on the fells between Kettlewell and Horton-in-Ribblesdale.
Winch operator Master Aircrew Rick Bragg said the fell rescue team and local fell runners had been looking for the teenagers all night in miserable, wet conditions but without luck. He said the helicopter was called out at 8.05am today and found the lost group about 15 minutes after starting the local search. Distressed"They were a bit distressed and one of the girls was a bit chilly, but we gave them a cup of tea and a biscuit and they were OK," he said. "They said they'd been walking all night and couldn't get any mobile phone coverage. "I think they were from London and a bit out of their environment out there. We found them out in the middle of the moors." Dont you just love the last sentence?
|
 |
 Would it have been more accepatable to generalise with "I think they were from a City........" then? 
|
|
I think they should be applauded for having the balls to get out there and have a go. Too many teenagers these days regard things like the Dof E as being `uncool'. When i was at school (in London) in the early 70's we had 3 camps a year for Adventure training in either Wales or the Lakes. Sometimes we got frozen, soaked and even lost but it was a brilliant time. Perhaps if more youngsters got involved with this sort of thing there would less of the current problems we keep reading about.
|
|
 I don't understand why they bothered wandering round a moor to get a signal. If they couldn't get a signal, why not go down into a valley and use a phone box?
|
|
 Young person: "is that like the box that a mobile phone comes in when you buy one?"
|
|
I kind of imagine them looking perplexed at the money slot!
|
|
It brings home how much people (not OM members of course) rely on mobile phones, as this incident shows they cannot be relied on to work at all in the sticks and even if they are working all you can do is call for help rather than navigate your way out, did they have any means of navigating at all? From what I remember of D of E this would have failed them on that task.
|
|
do they still have phone boxes that work "out in the sticks"? they've all but disappeared in london.
|
|
Well I don't have a mobile phone, nor do I ever want one, so occasionally I'll use one of those old-fashioned phone boxes on my travels. It's true, some of them have vanished and you can't rely on the 'T' symbol on an OS map marking the spot of a telephone any more. Even the ones that are still present might have a notice to say they're going to be taken away. Of the ones still standing, many don't take coins any more and have to be used with a 'chargecard' or similar. Of those that do still take money, I think people have forgotten how to work them properly, because I'm always finding loose change in them, not that I'm complaining! Overseas, the situation is often much better, and I usually just arm myself with a pre-paid card. In France, for instance, they don't take money anyway, while in many other countries, it can be a hassle just sorting out change. It's only rarely that I need to make a call, and I certainly don't want anyone calling me on my travels, so for the moment I'm definitely holding off ever getting a mobile.
|
|
"don't want anyone calling me on my travels" lol. so do i. it's called the off switch. in fact i only switch mine on when i want to make a call or am expecting one. from work, i have come to the conclusion that these "blackberry" gizmos only work inside lifts.
|
|
 I thought the old joke was about a gooseberry in a lift there Parky!  You know, what is green and goes up and down, up and down all the day.
|
|
Even though I don't carry a phone, I actually got a call once in the middle of the mountains in Corsica. I'd checked into a hotel for a soft-option night, and I thought no-one in the entire world knew I was there, but at breakfast the next morning the manageress handed me the phone and said it was for me! Very creepy! Anyway, it turned out that it was a couple who I'd met the previous day, and they'd left some of their stuff at a campsite, and they knew I was at the hotel and asked if I'd check it was still there. Turned out it had already been nicked, but there you go!
|
|
 .... Of those that do still take money, I think people have forgotten how to work them properly, because I'm always finding loose change in them, not that I'm complaining! I'm one of the people who have forgotten how to use them properly, Paddy. Like you I used to find loose change in them quite often, but now I can't even remember where to find 'Button B'.
|
|
I'd checked into a Hotel for a soft night option sorry Paddy, the illusion has been shattered
|
|
Interesting comment earlier by MD, if more youth were made to get into the outdoors, on courses of sorts, not boot camps, then more may realis that there is actually more to life than forming gangs and such. Or perhaps not.....perhaps thered be more random stabbings of sheep and cows for not having the right colour shirt on.
|
|
Be a brave hoodie who stabbed a cow, they're right 'ard, respect! sheep are pretty tough too when they have a full fleece, a double fleecer can stop a .22 bullet (that is true!).
|
|
Very interesting facts there Ben! It raises a couple of questions to my mind though. Do sheep often worry about being shot then? Who usually does the shooting, armed foxes?
|
|
Down here agriculture is mosty large scale sheep ranching, the blokes who are gathering usually carry guns, they call them their 'dogs that bark once'. 
|
|
