March 25, 2005
Mobile phone call to wife ends Briton's six-day jungle ordeal
Botanist John Gillatt regarded mobile phone as one of the tyrannies of modern life. But he changed his mind last Saturday, when he got lost in the jungle of the eastern Pahang region. He switched on his phone, climbed to high ground for a signal and put out an SOS call to his wife - 6,000 miles away at the family home in Bolton.
It is the latest in a series of mobile-related rescues where those in distress have proved that texts, camera phones and e-mails are threatening to put St Bernard rescue dogs out of work.
Gillatt asked his wife to tip-off the Smokehouse Inn where he had been staying, about 60 miles north of the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.
Mrs Gillatt found herself co-ordinating a search operation lasting five days and involving 70 people, helicopters and sniffer dogs. As the phone battery began to run down, Mr Gillatt resorted to texting to describe his whereabouts to his wife so she could relay the message to searchers.
Although the mobile saved Mr Gillatt's life, some rescue services complain that people are too hasty in hitting the panic button. After a steady rise in call-outs in the past three years, some mountain rescue teams have complained mobiles are causing people to treat them as a "wet nurse". (in The Independent)
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