06/10/2020
My book on rescue work will soon been published on the 70th anniversary of the rescue squad. There are 70 stories 30 written by me and 40 members of the rescue squad write one story each. Here is one story for you. Enjoy.
My rescue team
Chapter 1: FJALLKIRKJAN- Church Mountain
I couldn’t see anything other than the eeriness of the unknown, the snow crashed against my goggles and as much I tried to wipe it off, I had entered a blizzard. The wind pushed against the snowmobile and tried to push me off it. I held on tightly and steered into the darkness. The three compasses I had were meant to keep me going in the right direction; there was one on the snowmobile, one on my wrist and another around my neck. The LORAN C Signalwas very weak but that often happen in blizzards, therefore I had to put my trust in the altimeter, the map and the other compasses. After being jolted around I stopped and walked five meters to ensure that the compass hadn’t been compromised by the blizzard. What am I even doing out here?
It was a long way, from Thingvellir and over Langjokull to the mountain Fjallakirkja. The year was 1987 and our friends in the Reykjavik Rescue team (HSSR)were in trouble. A team of four people had set off on two snowmobiles from a mountain hut, however on their journey through the blizzard, they had driven off a cliff. Their radios had cut out, and they could see that none of them were seriously injured, however they were lost, and the weather was getting continuously worse. They were in a whiteout, but they were able to build an igloo and waited there for help. The Reykjavik rescue team sent out a Snowcat to pick them up, however the Snowcat had technical issues and broke down. 24 hours after the accident another search and rescue party had been sent out.
(There were six of us on three snowmobiles, and as we got closer to our destination, we had to leave them behind on the glacier, we parked them as closely as possible to each other to avoid danger.)
A month before we completed an expedition over ‘the three glaciers’ and one of our destination on the expedition was Fjallakirkja, where I had the opportunity to note down the LORAN C points and familiarise myself with the route. Luckily, I had my notebook in my pocket on this rescue mission, so I knew that our chances of getting to the mountain hut were good as long as the weather didn’t get any worse. Our trip over the glacier went as well as it could have in a whiteout, and the other snowmobiles crept behind me like shadows. If the men behind me lost sight in front them they were meant to stop and wait for me to come back. They had shovels to dig themselves holes if there was trouble as well as all the correct equipment needed, so I was not too worried about them. It was a short way to hut and I poured over my notebook, and so did the snow. I made sure that the compass stayed 64.00.00 to the east and make sure we didn’t reverse down the hill to the south.
We made sure that we were careful driving over the last bit as there are many cliffs in the area, then we saw the Shark- the HSSR’s snow cat outside the hut. I walked into the hut covered in icicles edging into the warmth. The hut is small and there were at least twelve of us inside. The snowcat was still being fixed. I was immediately focused on continuing with the rescue mission and asked my friends if they were able to continue. One of the other men who had driven with us had enough for the day, however one was ready to join me and my friend Ingimundur, and we drove off into the snowstorm once again.
Ski poles and LORAN points
My idea was to use the Loren points which I had written down the month before. To make the mission less dangerous, Ingimundur proceeded to put on his skis and attached himself to my snow mobile, he then proceeded to tie a rope around his ski pole and throw it as far as he could in front of us to determine if it was safe for us to move across. The wind was the strongest from the south west, but the place where the accident had occurred was not as windy. This was unfortunate as we had no idea if we could approach that side safely. We knew that this could take a long time, but we had nothing better to do than look for a needle in a haystack.
I looked for the points from the Loran signal, and from there we pushed onwards. Ingimundur threw his pole out into the distance and skied there to determine the safety, we did this over and over again. All of this took a long time and every ten minutes I wrote down the co- ordinates of the Loren points so that we could make our way back. After a while the wind had become calmer. A man appeared walking towards us and directed us towards the accident site.
I tended to the people in the igloo, it turned out that one of the men had a knee injury. We wanted the injured man to come with us, but he was exhausted and wanted to wait for the snowcat to arrive. Amongst the people in the hut a woman is nurse, we decided to go back and request her help at the igloo, she was more than happy to help the injured man. However our way back to the igloo was difficult. None of us could see a thing, and I constanty looked at the LORAN C points to see if we were on the right track. Whilst I was concentrating on this the snowmobile flipped to the side and we were thrown off. Eventually we got to the igloo and the nurse was able to tend to the pateint, the nurse informed us that the only way to get the pateint safely to hospital was by a snowcat or being airlifted, which was clearly not an option in this atrocious weather.
A twisted truck ride
Whilst all of this took place, the second team from Reykjavik was approaching, their Snow Cat (Kyndill) was working in full swing roaring towards the igloo, as was the second snowcat (Ingolfur. Through the readio I directed them towards our co-ordinates. Some time had passed and based on the co-ordinates given they already should have made it to us. I set off west where I saw the tracks and followed them east to redirect them. The snowcat‘s were headed right into an area surrounded by cravasses...
I could see the back of Kyndill but was unable to make contact with them at first through the radio, after i changed the frequency I got through, where I told them to turn around instantly and follow me, which they did. However when they turned the snowcat I lost sight of them in the white out and my heart dropped. I sighed with relief when I saw the driver wave at me through the window. At this very moment the truck dropped into a large cravase, thankfully no one was injured.
I directed the next snowcat Ingolfur towards the igloo as we had no time to waste.
Ingolfur was a Kässbohrer, one of the five the rescue team had purchased in 1985. Little did I know that I would own Ingolfur as well as another truck, a few years later.
The truck headed in the right direction and i waited for them at the point where I drank my hot chocolate and munched on my snack. I had been awake for 26 hours and decided to give myself a rest break where a lay down and fell fast asleep. I awoke by the sound of the snow cat roaring towards me, i shouted into the radio for them to stop, so that they would not run me over and it was a close one. I then directed the snowcat as near to the accident site as I could; the back of the truck hovered over the Igloo and the five people from the igloo boarded the snowcat, and we left the snow mobiles behind.
Home the same night
We decided to drive the snowcat Ingolfur over the glacier and back to Reykjavik that night as I was meant to be at a job interview at 10 am the next morning. I decided to take my snowmoblie and drove beside the snowcat. It was a long night and the truck moved slowly over the glacier. Around five hours into the journey the snowmobile began to hiccup due to snow having formed around the engine. I then decided that I should go into the snowcat instead and attached the snowmobile to the back of the snowcat. I packed myself into the the snowcat, where I fell asleep on some passanger. A couple of hours later I was awoken, where I started my journey towards my car, an hour later I was back at the point where I had set off from two and a half days later, two hours later in Reykjavik and walked into my job interview.
