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Socia Media (facebook) Saved A Dying Stranded Man - Travel - Nairaland

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Socia Media (facebook) Saved A Dying Stranded Man by Rendezvou: 8:35am On Jan 09, 2015
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A badly injured California
hiker stranded on a remote trail was located by a
quick-thinking dispatch trainee using Facebook
after a 911 distress call got cut off, authorities said
Wednesday.

Ryan Pritchard, 41, was hiking Sunday afternoon
with his sons Jake, 11, and Devon, 18, in the
rugged Putah Creek State Wildlife Area near Lake
Barryessa, about 30 miles east of his Sacramento
home, when he slipped on a loose rock and fell
150 feet down a cliff and landed in a tree.

Since Devon had already gone ahead to their car to
return gear, little brother Jake went down the cliff,
got his father’s cell phone and called 911, reaching
the California Highway Patrol dispatcher. But the
call was disconnected before he could give an
accurate location and efforts to call again failed.
“Because it was in our jurisdiction, they relayed it
to us,” said Deputy Daryl Snedeker, spokesman for
the Solano County Sheriff’s Department. “Our
dispatchers took the information and began to
work together to try to determine where the
subject was.”

The cell phone coordinates got them no closer
than a cell tower in the city of Vacaville, some 30
miles from where the hikers were. Then a dispatch
trainee, Breanna Martinez, got an idea.

“She’s a younger person, so the social media was
the first thing that came to her mind,” said
Snedeker. “She went to Google, as everyone does
these days, and Googled the guy’s name.”
Google took Martinez to Ryan Pritchard’s LinkedIn
page, which then led her to his Facebook page.
“I scrolled down and the very first post was a
picture of his two sons and behind him was the
lake — Lake Berryessa,” Martinez told CBS
Sacramento. “And it just said, ‘Hiking the Blue
Ridge Trail today.’”

That was all the information the dispatchers
needed. A CHP rescue helicopter crew found the
trail, plucked Ryan from the tree and got him to UC
Davis Medical Center all before darkness, said
Snedeker.

Ryan was being treated for several fractured bones,
a head injury and a broken jaw, his family told
CBS Sacramento.

“I am really impressed by this. I’m so proud of
them, taking the initiative and solving the
problem,” said the dispatchers’ boss, Solano
County Sheriff Tom Ferrara. “And if you have to
come up with a new way of doing it, that’s just
outstanding.”

mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0KG24420150107?irpc=932
Re: Socia Media (facebook) Saved A Dying Stranded Man by Nobody: 8:42am On Jan 09, 2015
Wow
Re: Socia Media (facebook) Saved A Dying Stranded Man by gift01: 8:49am On Jan 09, 2015
Quick thinking. That's all it takes to seperate Extra from Ordinary and save a life. Bravo Trainee! You just saved the world from agony

1 Like

Re: Socia Media (facebook) Saved A Dying Stranded Man by Redoil: 8:51am On Jan 09, 2015
We shall soon get there
Re: Socia Media (facebook) Saved A Dying Stranded Man by Rendezvou: 10:41am On Jan 09, 2015
For travellers, especially those going to places they do not know or on an adventure even for those meeting people for any reason at unknown or isolated places; you may need to consider updating your location status on Facebook. May evil not befall us.

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