“Oops”

Not too long ago, a friend was telling me that excitement is not necessarily a good thing. She was right about that today.

We were planning to leave Rogue River am today to get to Portland with some time to look around. But host Spencer offered to give us a ride in his Rhino, an over-sized ATV that he plays with from time to time. Kim was not in the mood for a vehicle that deliberately throws you around but I was, to her chagrin, very keen. On a promise we’d only be out for a half hour, she let Spencer and I go out for a spin. We drove the Rhino onto the back of his even-more-oversized truck and drove out to the trailhead for some fire roads that go into the forested mountains nearby.

We unloaded the Rhino and he drove us up these gravel roads, sliding and bouncing all over the place. It was loud, bumpy and twisting – so good fun for people who are not Kim like myself. Our first destination was a half-built but sweet treehouse on the top of a mountain with a hell of a view. He offered me the wheel and we went up an even steeper road. We had a scare briefly when we stalled, one wheel stuck halfway up a tree with the vehicle at 45 degrees, but were able to back out of that OK. We found a destroyed pot-growing facility and encountered a mysteriously-filled hole. We drove back down the hill – I swear it was steeper on the way down but ultimately had few problems rolling down. It was great.

The next bit was interesting. I was driving on a fairly flat but narrow trail on our return when we hit a pothole. These are not rare and indeed encouraged when on an ATV and we’d been over many. This one was a little different. We went in, it was deeper than expected and I lost control of the vehicle briefly. I recovered but was driving off the trail about to go over the edge so sharply turned back to the road. Oops. At our speed and given the rough surface below us, the wheel hit high resistance and the vehicle’s low centre of gravity wasn’t enough to hold us down. We overturned completely – possibly twice – and came to rest on our side right on the precipice. I felt no injury and the vehicle seemed stable and Spencer was conscious, so I killed the engine, unbuckled, climbed out and helped pull Spencer out. His ankle and finger were looking ugly but otherwise he was ok.

We called for help – only the second time I’ve ever had to do so – and soon had a bit of a problem: we had no idea where we were. Turns out that “an unnamed path somewhere in the forest on a mountainside” does not constitute a precise location. We we gave them an approximate location. Without a compass, sun, or an app we weren’t able to take bearings. Pro tip: iPhones can’t natively report lat/long – we could see ourselves in Google Maps but couldn't describe our position. My Android’s battery was dead due to overzealous photography earlier in the ride.

So all credit to the Rogue River Fire Department when the rumble of their trucks became audible in under half an hour. We caught a glimpse of one of them on a road a few hundred metres below us – although there wasn’t an obvious road connection between them and us. They stopped and started hiking up the hill while I ran down to meet them. Good exercise, running up and down all those hills looking for the paramedics and directing them to us. Had to break out some old skills I’ve not needed in many years. But they got to us and patched up Spencer.

Second problem we encountered was that Spencer has a suspected ankle break and wasn’t mobile. our location wasn’t road accessible. I ran a few miles trying to find a way they could bring an ambulance up but no cigar. There was a reason we were on an ATV. They called in a heli mission, although there was no LV so they starting to prep him to be winched up. I ran down to meet the rescue vehicles and hauled supplies up. Finally, all that hill running I do paid off…

You’re probably aware that using the American ambulance service isn’t quite as financially comfortable as the NHS or SAMU. Even if your arm is falling off and you’re the ongoing recipient of CPR, you have this voice in the back of your head saying '”will the insurance cover all this? Did I pay my premium this month?”. And when someone mentions helicopters that voice becomes very loud. You start looking for alternatives. Hmm, that ATV may have just flipped over and is on its side but it’s not on fire, why don’t we take that down? And so that’s what we did. The paramedics and I flipped it upright and checked it out. Not a scratch. It started up as if nothing had happened. Kudos to Yamaha for building their tough cars tough. It was arguably improved, in fact, due to the addition of vegetation throughout; it was now an ATV with a shrubbery in the back seats. We loaded Spencer in, drove down to a waiting ambulance, transferred him and headed down the mountain. He rushed off to hospital while I met up with his and my girlfriends, both of whom were understandably concerned,

There were some more adventures, including my driving of a massive all-American truck that, when driven, felt like it could drive over other cars; the smashing of a window (not me!); the purchase of $50 worth of Keystone beer (for the uninitiated, that’s a good night out for a Rugby lad); overeating at a China Buffet and a late night drive up to Portland powered by very sweet tea.

I walked away from this without so much as a scratch. Spencer was a little more banged up, but the X-rays, to everyone’s surprise, showed nothing broken. This vehicle is chilling in his garage with no damage. It could have been a lot worse in many ways: if I was injured we wouldn’t have been able to find help; we were very close to rolling down the mountain; our harnesses held us inside the rollcage, the Rhino could have not restarted; the S&R might have searched the wrong area… the list goes on. I suppose there’s a lesson here but I am surprisingly unshaken by the whole thing.