Wpg Free Press: Stranded in car? Stay put, expert says
Gordon Giesbrecht, a professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, has in various media reports this weekend sharing his latest bit of survival advice: stay with your car.
As the Winnipeg Free Press reports:
“Stay in your vehicle no matter what. Someone is going to come by,” said Giesbrecht, a professor of thermophysiology at the University of Manitoba.
On Saturday, Giesbrecht led training sessions in Winnipeg for various search and rescue personnel. It is part of a series, called Baby it’s Cold Outside, being held across Canada, with a different focus at each. In Manitoba, training concentrates on the “stranded-vehicle scenario” and lost hunters. Ontario training sessions deal with stranded snowmobilers and cross-country skiers. In Alberta, training deals with avalanches and mountain-side rescues.
Staying with your vehicle is the correct answer when it stalls or slides into a ditch, but many people don’t follow that rule.
“What is it that forces people to leave a perfectly good shelter?” asked Giesbrecht.
“They think help is closer than it is, and they think they can get farther than they can.”
Giesbrecht was also recently on the Mercer Report on CBC. He’s been on this show (an astonishingly) three times — first time, second time, and…
Third time: