Amazon rescuers find ravine crash couple in MB Unimog

Eric S.

Adventurer
Glad they make it out okay and have a good story to tell :)
Hindsight it might be a good idea for the passengers to cross rickety bridges on foot first. Taking the first-aid pack and a communication device. At least if something goes wrong everyone isn't going for the ride. They must have been a little skeptical since it warranted a photo : ) But being the main road and no other option I would have crossed it.
 

4Rescue

Expedition Leader
Scarry??? Yes, but from the description in the news you'd have thought they fell off into a 2000ft. deep gorge... I'm in no way suprised they walked away unscathed. I'm certainly glad to see that they were OK and that they are potentialy going to get back on the road aye. The real tragedy would be ending a trip like that on a note like this. Looks like the mog did a great job of protecting it's occupants/opperators. I've rolled an XJ down a bank of simillar size and in reality what was the MOST dangerous was the stuff that was loose and then FLYING around the cabin. My dad has since been convinced of why something like a large padlock can be a "problem" in those situations ;) In this case I think being in an 8tonne truck actually HELPED them saty same and sound (although a propperly packed 75/Patrol/Gwagen would have left them in ok shape as mell in my estimation.

In terms of recovery... that's a complicated pull to get it back on it's wheels (read: PULLABLE) and tehn up and out of that ravine, but I think as long as the engine was running and they had F/R winches it's doable for sure. Althogh, at the same time, everyone's talking about winch capacities but has anyone ever though about the TREE capacity's??? I've seen a perfectly stout looking anchor get pulled out and down with a heavy load so something to think about, espescialy if it were the wet season and the soil was saturated.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel bad for the Unimog which is the CLEAR victim in all of this.

Cheers

Dave
 

haven

Expedition Leader
One of the blog posts about the accident said that by the time the owners had returned to the crash site, the locals had found a place to cross the river nearby, and had built a crude roadway down to it. That will suffice until the rainy season returns.
 

RMP&O

Expedition Leader
It's easy for some of us to offer useless criticism.
Let's just be happy they made it uninjured and with a semi-intact vehicle.


Charlie

How in the world is suggesting safe travel, knowledge in not only your vehcile but how to repair it uselss criticism?? Oh and lets not forget how to safely recover the vehicle plus to to make that 15k winch pull much harder than 15klbs. If I have recovered my vehicle many times, many different ways, with many different tools as well as other peoples vehicles, then I am not sitting here web wheeling. I actualy have some kind of an idea about what I am talking about. Just because I don't have some special little star next to my name doesn't mean I am clueless.

I am sorry to you Mog owners, I do not mean to belittle you or your trucks. I have loved Mogs as long as any other truck. But ignorance comes in all shapes and sizes and is not specific to one type of truck or owner of that truck. How can you sit there and say a Patrol is no good for overlanding, that is absurd. Not only does the Patrol fit the bill more it can go thousands of places no Mog can go due to size and weight of the trucks, it is also a truck that happens to be affordable to about 10,000x more people. I mean come on, I understand you guys are fan boys and love your Mogs but lets not throw reason and logic out the window.

This thread is about a Mog crashing into a ravine, it is not about the trip they are doing. I am sure Lesley & Bruce are great people and I too am glad they were not injured or killed. I am also glad they have gotten the truck out and repaired it and are back to traveling. However, that is not really what this thread is about is it?

They made mistakes, what in the world is wrong with pointing those out and taking about them? Nobody is perfect....everyone can make mistakes. Why not learn from the mistakes you make as well as the mistakes other people make.

#1: they should have checked the bridge closer. Simply because you have crossed xxx amount of bridges in a day or week or whatever it is still irresponsible to take a vehicle this heavy over shoddy old wooden bridges in the jungle. As some one clearly posted, they have a home on wheels so why would it matter if it takes longer to do the drive then they planned? All they have to do is think more, slow down and camp more nights (in luxury as was pointed out) and things like this would not have happened to them.

#2: The vehicle looked fully recoverable to me. I don't even think they needed a rear winch to do it. Having not been there I can't say for sure if it could have been recovered but correct me if I am wrong, they didn't even try to recover the truck. There is a hundred different ways to try and recover this vehicle, on your own and they didn't even try once?

#3: Go prepared. That means know how to do anything that may be required of you in the bush. They could have just as easily been robbed of the truck at gun point and left with nothing in the middle of nowhere. Are they prepared for that type of situation? What are they going to do if one of them gets bitten by a deadly snake? What are they going to do if one of them gets extremely sick? Call for help? And what if that Sat phone got broken or lost?

I will always tell you to go on a trip vs not going. I am also going to tell you to go prepared and be ready for any situation that may come your way. That in my book is called responsible overland travel.

Excuse me but, what the #%$* is wrong with being a responsible traveler? What is wrong with telling people to be responsible? I simply do not understand the mentallity that you can afford a truck like this as well as the time to travel the world but you can not take time to learn to be a responsible overland traveler before you go? You have all this money, time and resources but you can't use any of that to learn how to repair your own truck in the bush? You can't take the time to learn how to recover your truck safely before you go? You do not have some basic survival skills to know how to deal with bad situations in difficult terrain and conditions? What in the world are you going to do then if that sat phone is broken, sit down in the mud and wait to die? Maybe I am confused but I thought part of the travel experience by vehicle to far away inhospitable lands is that you are prepared. Go to these places and chances are things will happen that will challenge you. I thought that was part of the adventure and what this type of travel is all about. In my mind irresponsible travel is no different than irresponsible anything. How many times do you think you can run that 9" grinder without safety glasses, hearing protection, boots and a solid pair of pants before it will bite you?

I don't really care if you don't like my opinion but you will have to make many good points as to why irresponsible is A-ok before I even consider begining to change my mind. What is it exactly in this community that makes people think that telling somebody to be a responsible traveler is a negative thing? Why is it that anything other then A-kissing and praise is not in the "spirit" of Expo? Give me a break, travel in inhospitable lands via vehicle plus offroad is a dangerous activity, to think anything less is delusional. If you want to risk your life as well as the life of the poeple you travel with, that is your business. If you want to risk the vehicle you have hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in (yes UniCats cost that much) that is your business. However, this is a public forum and if I see something irresponsible that invites distaster, I am going to speak my mind about the subject. Logic tells me people with experience should be telling those without to be responsible but maybe my logic is all arsebackwards!? Is this community really this soft skinned? Is the fear of flaming and bashing so great on this forum that people can't point out when somebody makes a mistake or is being irresponsible in the way they travel? How some of you been bashed on so hard on other forums you are now scarred for life or something along those lines? I would think things would be just the opposite as long as there is not outright bashing or flaming going on, edutction and furthering knowledge happes to be a good thing, really it is.

Go prepared, be responsible...it may just save your life! How you could ever say I am wrong is simply to far beyond my simple little mind.

For the record, it was not only the post I quoted that inspired my post, rather many posts on the forum that I have seen in my two years of being here.
 

grizzlyj

Tea pot tester
Hi

I bought the above magazine, and thought I could summarise the article, put together when the couple visited the UK to source parts.

The trips mentioned in the blog that Bruce did in the 70's was as an expedition leader driving a Bedford 4x4 with up to 25 people from London to Cape Town.

Arriving in Jan '06, they explored Mexico, Belize, Guatamala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama with four others, then Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay then Brazil.

"We'd been reassured by the Police that the road (from Porto Velho to Manaus) was passable in our vehicle; the army was rebuilding it for the July 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, and it wasn't the rainy season," said Lesley. "Unfortunately the maps didn't mention that there were more than 100 wooden bridges to cross."

The road hadn't been easy to that point and they were reluctant to turn around. They'd crossed bridges with missing planks that had been OK, then two that were perfect so assumed they had reached the newly improved road. "The next bridge looked good and solid, painted with tar, with no loose planks, so we started to drive across."

"As soon as we left the road I could see the front wheels coming off the side of the bridge and I knew we were going over," said Lesley. "My side of the vehicle was plummeting towards the ground. We had seatbelts on, but my window was open, so Bruce grabbed me, heroically, while attempting to steer the Mog back onto the tipping bridge - he was trying to save me from losing my arm or head through the open window. We landed and slid further towards the river at the bottom, but luckily stopped before we hit it. The windscreen smashed, but we were both unhurt. We struggled out of our seatbelts, climbed into the back and out of the skylight. It was 3.30pm and was unbelievably hot and humid - for the next hour we carried things up the ravine."

After phoning for help via the UK on a Sat phone, knowing help was on its way (arriving 20 hours after the crash), they declined a lift from a local who had turned up. They made a makeshift shelter for the night. When the helicopter did arrive they did a deal with the local to guard their stuff. 2 days later a knife weilding gang on mopeds threatened him so he left. 3 days after the crash 2 policemen drove to the crash site with the couple, leaving at 7am arriving at dusk, stopping cars and mopeds they passed and retrieved a few things. Another camp out with the 2 police at a nearby fibre optics sub-station.

Next morning there was a queue of cars beside the road. People had already cut a new route through the jungle, built a makeshift bridge and were driving and pushing their vehicles up the other side. Everything in the camper had been taken except the mattress and the cutlery, the draw had jammed shut, but in the 3 days everything had been forced open and taken.

The police introduced them to "Mr Big" (a local ferry and fish distribution business) who wanted £1300 to take the Mog to Manaus, if he couldn't there would be no charge. His team of men righted the vehicle, drove it down through the water and up a makeshift track, then on for 200km, reinforcing bridges as they went until they reached Castanho, 100km from Manaus. Lesley and Bruce got the vehicle back a week later as promised, with repairs made in Manaus to the steering and some welding. The Mog is being rebuilt by motorhome manufacturers San Ignacio in Gramado, Southern Brazil who offered to do the work after hearing of the accident.

"In South America we generally meet friendly, happy people, whose motto is 'we work to live'. And we couldn't agree more"

:)
 

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