Winter Caretaker Report’ 22/23 Vol. 3
Gangler’s winter caretaker, Chris Sowden, is glad to provide us with his third report for the season with an insight of his time at the North Seal River Lodge. This month features caribou sightings & a serious Medical Evacuation by helicopter:
“Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! The Northern Lights were bright for Christmas and put on quite the spectacle for me during the holidays. But that wasn’t the only exciting thing to happen up here at Gangler’s. Some local Caribou hunters who I’ve met many times were in the area trying to harvest some meat. Unfortunately, one of the hunters had a serious snowmobile accident and got injured. His sons and hunting partners found him and brought him back to the cabin in the toboggan.” I immediately pressed the S.O.S button on my Garmin in reach device.
The rescue was delayed because of bad weather, and it would take 36 hours before the helicopter could get to our location. The injured hunter was in a lot of pain. And that’s not surprising considering we eventually found out that he had a broken elbow, fractured collar bone and 2 fractured ribs. His arm was so swollen that they couldn’t give him a cast.
The first responders eventually were able to come, and they did a great job getting him safely out of the location and to a hospital. And they also brought me some treats and Tim Hortons donuts!
A few notes from Ken Gangler – The drama Chris describes was very serious. The injured hunter got caught under his skidoo on one of the North Seal side lakes, miles away from the lodge. In the -20 temps, he would not have survived the night had his friends not found him. They got him back to Ganglers where Chris jumped into action, checking his vital signs, and activating the Garmin device. The Garmin team was immediately on top of things, within minutes contacting our home office in FL, Manitoba health officials, and Evacuation services. To complicate matters, bad weather moved in for a day, shutting down all flying. The end result was the hunter was emergency airlifted on the second day to Thompson as soon as the weather improved. He is pretty beat up but will be fine. Our hats are off to Chris and all of the Emergency Services involved. The Garmin team was extremely impressive, updating us throughout until the hunter was safely in Thompson. We can’t say enough about the Garmin In-Reach devices and highly recommend them to our guests. The video is the actual rescue helicopter departing after rescuing the wounded hunter.