[Harc] Ham Radio to the Rescue Again!

[Terra Tech]

Hey HARC folks,

I had a very interesting and satisfying experience with amateur radio 
today. I work from home and continually have my Icom 2730 scanning all 
the local ham repeaters including those in Del Norte County. From my QTH 
up near the water tower in Eureka I can get into the DNARC repeater in 
Crescent City and have the occasional QSO with folks up that way. Today 
I had a strange one!

At around 4:00pm I heard a scratchy call for help. The operator was 
calling out SOS and asking for anyone to come back to them. They sounded 
pretty stressed. I hopped on the radio and tried to contact the person. 
I could only make out about half of what the person was saying but 
apparently the person had fallen and could not get up. The ham said 
their call was good on QRZ and after I finally got a copy on it I looked 
them up and called 911. (I think this is the first time I have ever 
called 911!) The 911 operator patched me up to the Del Norte Sheriff's 
office who dispatched an ambulance and then transfered me over to the 
ambulance dispatcher. It was unusual to be placing an emergency call on 
behalf of someone who I did not know who was in a place 90 miles away 
from me while using two forms of voice communication.

I was at times trying to get more details from the fallen ham on the 
radio to relay to the emergency services people while also trying to 
talk on the phone to those services. A ham in Medford also came to my 
assistance to try and suggest helpful information to gather from the ham 
in need. Two other hams (one was Christie WA6ZDO) in the Crescent City 
area also got on the repeater to try and help out. After about 20 
minutes from the initial distress call, the ham in need came back on air 
briefly to say the ambulance had arrived. A little while later Jaimie 
KJ6JKL (I believe the DNARC president) got on the repeater to say that 
the ham in need was on their way to the hospital and he thanked those 
who helped out in the situation.

I have been reflecting on this experience for the past few hours and I 
feel really pleased that I was able to help in such a simple way. I do 
not know what the circumstances were that lead to this ham in Crescent 
City to be in such a vulnerable situation but it is great that they had 
I assume their HT near by. I feel like having my amateur radio license 
really did assist someone in an emergency (worth the cost and effort to 
study!) I also feel that the experience I have had participating in 
radio nets, contesting and other HARC activities helped me clearly 
communicate the necessary information to both the emergency services and 
the fallen ham simultaneously.

Anyway, Jaye KE6SLS suggested I post this experience to the reflector as 
it demonstrates the "service" part of the Amateur Radio Service.

73!

Randy KN6NSK










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