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Emergency Call-out Reports Missing 55-year-old hiker 19 June, 2010 At 23h30 on Saturday 19th June 2010, T68 Simon received a call from Sean Buchanan of Mountain Search & Rescue asking for ORRU assistance to search for a missing hiker in Mpumalanga. Initial reports indicated that the hiker, a 55-year-old male, was relatively experienced and had left his hiking party to seek help after the group had become lost while hiking in the Graskop area of Mpumalanga. God's Window, a popular tourist attraction in Mpumalanga was mentioned, and caused some confusion as the GPS co-ordinates we had for their base camp was some 200km away from God's Window. Later it was established that the confusion was due to the camping ground that was the hiking party's base being named God's Window Camp... and which was in no way associated with the tourist attraction. The camp was in fact some 50km South East of Belfast in Mpumalanga, approximately 250km East of Pretoria. The farmer who owns the campsite had gone out and found the hiking party and had brought them all to safety, but the 55-year-old male had yet to return to camp, so a call was made to ER24, who in turn alerted MSAR. The Code Yellow went out at 23h52 and at 00h13 the Code Orange was issued advising that Team 1 would comprise T68 Simon (Field Team Leader); W97 Dagan; M95 Chris and M96 Japie. The team was to prepare for a 01h30 rendezvous with MSAR personnel. V93 Dean was also Status 1, and would be responding in his MSAR role. Johannesburg-based members would RV at Lonehill Fire Station to load MSAR personnel and their gear, and M96 Japie would meet with Pretoria-based MSAR team members and RV with the rest of Team 1 as they passed through Pretoria en route to the campsite. The Code Red was issued at 00h50. Johannesburg members met at Lonehill and had begun making preparations to load MSAR members and gear, when MSAR's Sean received a call that the missing hiker had just walked into the camp and was safe. T68 called M96 in Pretoria to advise him he could stand down, and issued the Code Green at 01h50. Thanks to all who responded on a cold winter's night!
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