VANCOUVER, Wash. (KOIN) — Jen Edwards and her golden doodle Ruben took off September 17 on an 8-day backpacking trip hiking the Illinois River Trail.
On the first day of the hike, about 10 miles in to the 60-mile hike, she fell around Silver Creek. She lost her footing, went down “and slipped into the shale.” She fell about 60 feet, she said. “I hit my head really hard, probably on the last rock boulder that was there. Then I landed face down in the creek.”
...
“I had my
inReach around my neck, and I just immediately grabbed it and hit the SOS button.”
The inReach is a satellite communicator that allows users to type, send, receive, track and send an SOS in one hand-held device.
Edwards said she sent a message to her fiance’ and posted the SOS to Facebook “knowing that if I lost consciousness I had an SOS and a message to Matt.”
...
Though she suffered a concussion, a broken hand and broken neck, she said she feels blessed.
“I’m alive. I get to hold my daughter, I get to listen to her laugh.”
And she felt she needed to pay it forward. So she decided to raise money to get the satellite communicators for search-and-rescue crews to help them communicate during rescues
