Common sense and a roaming Chicago cell phone helped effect a rescue of two tourists from Grand Cayman’s interior late Friday.
What could have been an uncomfortable overnight ordeal for Rachel Hopkins and Samir Marwah turned into little more than a two-hour extension of their visit to the Mastic Trail.
Just before 5.30pm, National Trust general manager Frank Roulstone received a phone call from a man who said he and his companion had got off the trail somewhere between markers 14 and 16. He wanted to know which direction they should go.
Mr. Roulstone consulted a map at the Trust office and realised the visitors were close to the southern end of the trail. But that end was flooded. The couple had entered from the Mastic Trailhead at the end of Further Road in North Side.
Mr. Roulstone also realised what kind of terrain they were dealing with.
After ascertaining that the hikers had no compass, only one small bottle of Gatorade and just the insect repellent they had applied before starting, he made his decision.
‘You’re in an extremely rocky area and the light is fading,’ he told the caller. ‘The last thing we need is an injury, so just stay put. We’ll come and get you out as soon as possible.’
Since Mr. Roulstone was still at the Trust office in George Town, he knew he had to get someone else to go to the trail as quickly as possible. There were a number of people who know the trail well enough to have helped, but ‘I learned how difficult it is to reach people after 5pm on a Friday,’ he said later.
Fortunately, Trust chairman Mrs. Carla Reid was at her home in East End. Within minutes of getting Mr. Roulstone’s call, she was on her way to the trailhead.
Meanwhile, he was concerned about her going onto the trail alone, so he phoned the Frank Sound fire station to see if they could assist.
Acting Sub-Officer Johnny Bodden took the call and confirmed that they could.
By this time Mr. Roulstone was hastening to North Side. He had put the visitors’ phone number into his own cell phone and realised it was a Chicago area code. He had to call long distance to reach them, letting them know help was on the way.
He advised that it could take a while, so they should make themselves as comfortable as possible. He assured them there were no dangerous creatures to worry about and advised that they listen for voices and watch for lights.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bodden had contacted the Central Fire Station to advise his seniors of the situation. Then he and Officer Richard Pascal took off in the Rescue Unit. Officer Chad Scott soon followed in the fire truck, manoeuvring it at the trail head so that he could depart swiftly if needed elsewhere.
Mr. Bodden had taken the couple’s phone number from Mr. Roulstone and he phoned them when Mrs. Reid arrived and the search party started off minutes before 6pm.
Mrs. Reid ran ahead as far as she could as fast as she could. ‘I just knew I had to get in there before dark,’ she said afterwards.
The firemen followed her. Neither had ever been on the trail before. ‘I thought it was a little path,’ Mr. Bodden acknowledged. ‘I didn’t know it was so long.’
On the way the officers maintained radio contact with Central and Mr. Scott, reporting their positions as they passed various markers.
When they got a good distance in, they started shouting. Near marker 17, the big mastic tree, they heard someone shouting back. They had been walking for 45 minutes. The hardest part was to come.
Mrs. Reid estimated that, at the closest point, the hikers were 100 to 150 feet off the trail. Mr. Bodden’s estimate was 150 to 200 feet. Not only was the surface rocky, but the rocks themselves were not all stable, Mrs Reid knew.
The hikers could see the searchers’ flashlights, but they could not see the ground in front of them. While Mr. Bodden and Mrs. Reid waited on the trail with the one light, Mr. Pascal took the other and made his way toward the visitors.
Once he reached them, he used his light to find his footing, and then shine the light so they could follow behind him. It was slow going, but they made it safely.
‘They weren’t scared and they weren’t hurt, but they were very happy to see the trail,’ Mrs. Reid reported. ‘They were surprised we got there so fast. Thankfully the mosquitoes had not been a problem.’
Now remained the task of walking back to the trailhead. Getting out took longer than going in.
By this time Mr. Roulstone had reached North Side, stopping home just long enough to change his shoes, grab a flashlight and two bottles of water. He had reached almost the midpoint of the trail when Mrs. Reid phoned to say the visitors had been found. She suggested he wait for them at the mastic tree.
When the group reached him he handed over the bottles of water and the rescued hikers seemed glad to have it.
On the way out they said they had come to Cayman for a week and had visited the Botanic Park. Earlier in the week, they had phoned the National Trust office for information about the trail. But they had not phoned on Friday.
They were scheduled to leave on Sunday and wanted to walk the trail. They remarked on how many birds they had seen going in and how much they had enjoyed the trail until they looked back and couldn’t see it anymore.
Mr. Bodden theorised that the winds and rain of Hurricane Wilma may have blown down some branches and obscured part of the trail between the beginning of the week and Friday.
When the group got near the end of the trail, the visitors saw flashing lights and wondered what they were. Told that the Fire Department vehicles were on the scene, they seemed embarrassed, Mr. Roulstone recalled.
He offered to buy them dinner, but they said no thank you – they just wanted to get to their hotel. The walk they had started around 4pm was over at 7.49pm according to Mr. Bodden’s notes.
Mr. Roulstone credited the visitors with having the good sense to carry their cell phone, then following his suggestion to stay in one place. Had they tried to extricate themselves, they could have wandered even farther off track and made it harder for searchers to find them, he pointed out.
Both Mrs. Reid and Mr. Bodden agreed that what saved Mr. Marwah and Ms Hopkins was having their cell phone and knowing what number to call.
‘It’s a great idea not to go in there without a phone,’ Mrs. Reid said.
Ironically, Mr. Roulstone lost his cell phone on the trail Friday night and so was unable to check on the visitors the next morning. He walked the trail again Saturday and recovered it. When contact was next attempted, the caller got Mr. Marwah’s voice mail.
Mr. Bodden put the incident in perspective when he spoke of his 18 years with the Fire Department, Mr. Pascal’s 15 years and Mr. Scott’s 13. In that time, he acknowledged, the officers had helped rescue people from fires, floods and wrecked cars.
‘But to actually go on that trail to find someone – especially at night – that was quite a challenge,’ he said.
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Mr. Roulston credited the visitors with having the good sense to carry their cell phone, then following his suggestion to stay in one place. Had they tried to extricate themselves, they could have wandered even farther off track and made it harder for searchers to find them..
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