Simpson Roll over

A VKS737 member too - John's HF ended up unserviceable after the incident (don't they work buried in the sand ?)........ just as well he had the registered Epirb.

One very lucky man.
Thank goodness he had a PLB.
We have one and hope like hell we never have to set it off.

Cheers

Stephen

"when a sand dune collapsed under his vehicle"........."overturned during a massive dust storm "
A 63 year old driving solo with no real communication gear crossing the Simpson at a very difficult time of the year! I think the saying "Familiarity breeds contempt" may be appropiate in this case.
Cheers Craig...........

It's a shame some quickly pass judgement on others about travelling alone. This guy had an EPIRB, now thats common sense to me and god preparation. Fixed radio's may be useless in this situation and with the EPIRB he did the right thing and activated it under the circumstance.
Some of us do things for whatever reason alone, whether it be in the outback or the high country. Its our freedom of this country that allows us. Now if he had a passenger on the other hand it could have been a more dire situation or a better one, who knows. People are so quick to be critical against one another. We don't know all the facts or what he was carrying so maybe we should just wait for the facts.

No offence to anyone personnally, just my opinion.

Beemer

I guess that after being out there in a sand blow less than 2 weeks ago its easy to see how mistakes can be made, but one thing is also clear , the type of vehicle he had , while common, is not very stable in those conditions.

The sand drift in that picture doesn't look very steep.

I hope we get enough extra info to see if a standard wagon might have not rolled over in the same situation.

I thought EPIRBs should only be activated in "life threatening situations".

The main thing here is that he had the right gear, used it, and is still alive and (I assume) relatively unscathed!

Cheers

Brian

Good situation for a Hand Winch - May have been able to right it again. Question is how much can you carry? :-)

PS Have done just that, but will not confess where :-0

My 2 cents worth.

Did he do well enough in the circumstances? Not was he perfect, pure as the driven snow and one who never ever made a mistake or an error of judgement and all those things that none of us are?

Well I was not there when this happened. From what I can gather things went very nasty very quickly with the sandstorms. I was out there twice August and September 2009 (hey its still September seems so long ago now) and would not have wanted to face the sandstorms that have happened since.

From what I can gather in the comfort of distance, time and a bit of reflection I think he did pretty well. Yeah he got into a bit of trouble and he did the right thing to get out of it. He had backup to the HF radio and used it.

Well done I would say. And a word of thanks to the police and the others involved in the rescue.

He was better prepared than me and I did a double solo crossing just me and vehicle. The only CB I carried on the first crossing failed and I had no backup. Had fixed that for the second crossing and had backup (but not near as good as his). He did not make the same mistake I did of no backup.

So what really is there to criticise? Oh he rolled the vehicle. Well maybe yes maybe no. I find his account very plausible and would just say "Bad luck mate" Hope you have a better crossing next time".

To all you cranky ones tonight. It looks to me as if the ute fell over not rolled. So many experts tonight that have never nearly fallen over lol.
I logged on tonight hoping to read more and hope the poor fella wasn't a forum member and all ive read is (some) experts that know nothing.

The driver was interviewed on ABC radio this afternoon.

He's crossed the Simpson FOUR times before.

He was westbound.

The ferocious storm arrived AFTER the rollover, so the shape of the sand in the photo may bear little relationship to the shape when the rollover occurred.