Posted by:
Brother Of Jerry
(
)
Date: December 16, 2018 09:32PM
Helen Klaben Kahn passed away this week. Her obit in the NYTimes recounted the tale of her crash landing in the Yukon in February 1963. The pilot also survived, but they had no survival gear (no ax, sleeping bags, rifle, rations), and several broken bones between them.
They had meager rations for ten days, and no food at all for 39 more days. They melted snow for water, and camped mostly in the plane cabin, which was more or less intact (small single-engine plane, flight from Fairbanks to Fort St John, BC). Remember, this was the Yukon in February.
I read the obit because one of my (broken record? :) claims here is that emergency preparedness is way overdone by Mormons. If you are in passably good health, you can survive a remarkably long time on just water, and in most real emergencies (fire, flood, earthquake, blizzard) it is either over quickly, or you will have to leave home quickly. Either way, you don't need a lot of food storage.
This was a remarkable survival story, but here's "the rest of the story". The pilot was a Mormon, and while they were trying to survive for 49 days until they were rescued, he intermittently tried to convince her she should convert to Mormonism.
She is Jewish. And the plane crashed because he got lost and did not have an instrument rating but took off in stormy weather anyway.
Maybe just being pissed off at him kept her alive. ;)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/obituaries/helen-kleban-kahn-dead.htmlEdited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2018 10:00PM by Brother Of Jerry.