Flashlight used in a survival situation, what's your story?

Many of us flashaholics like to never be without a flashlight on our person. Sometimes we even hope we will be in a situation where our flashlight becomes a key component in making it easier to survive/deal with.

How many of you have been in a situation, whether a major inconvenient or even a survival, where having a flashlight at hand made a big difference or was the deciding factor? What type of flashlight were you using (LED / Incandescent)? Tell us your story.

John

No takers? I'll give this one a bump. Although certainly not a matter of survival, I have used my EDC lights on a number of occasions when I came upon vehicles that had slid off of the area Interstates into either the median or off into the brush. Being in rural Pennsylvania means that it is often quite dark. Having a light made it much safer to reach the vehicles as well as doing a quick damage assessment and/or helping folks to exit the vehicles. Nothing earth shaking about it. Just interesting how many folks, including others who stopped to help, either did not have flashlights or had lights with weak to dead batteries.

There have got to be better stories than that around.

The only time I had to use mine was during a visit to Frankenmuth. We were in the Zehnders christmas store and a bad storm blew by and...Poof out went the lights.

They did have a few emergency lights by the exits but I had my trusty E2 and we were able to navagate out way around with no problems at all.

I was visiting the Mother in Law. She lives in the Caribbean. The power is spotty most days, usually only 10 hours a day of grid supply. Her inverter pooped out after 10 years of reliable service and 2 sets of batteries.

I travel with a River Rock AA and a Solitaire with the MJLED mod. I had given her the River Rock (2) AAA in a previous trip. With the RR AA on tail stand we had enough ceiling bounce to cook etc at night.

She has a good supply of rechargeable AA's so we had no trouble feeding the RR twice each night. We finally got the new inverter up after a few days, but it was fun seeing the lights get used.

The wife never laughs about my hobby

It was about 15 years ago. I was hiking down from Half Dome in Yosemite. For various reasons we started down around 4pm. There were 4 in our group and I had a MiniMag and so did my buddy Gordon. The sun set and it soon got very dark. As we were hiking down we picked up stranded hikers with no flashlights. One other hiker did have a 3 D Maglight. He was very young and his batteries were very weak. I took the lead, the kid was in the middle, and Gordon was at the end of the line. We hit the valley floor around 10pm. By that time our little group had grown to about 30! A Ranger was waiting at the trail head. He asked, "Are you Kelly M.?" My friends were worried and had reported my group as overdue. I replied yes, and then asked him if he had about 25 other people on his list. He said yes and I informed him we brought all of them down safely.

I have hiked Half Dome about a dozen times in my life. One time I met a German couple going up while I was coming down. We met at Little Yosemite. For those not familiar, it is still about a 2 hour hike to get to the top from there. It was around 3pm and they were in the process of turning back. I gave them my Maglight and extra batteries so they could complete the hike. It would have been a shame to have travelled all that way (half way around the world!) and not make it to the top. My back up light was a chemical glo-stick! Ah my pre-flashaholic days were primitive indeed!

kelmo

I to have had a hiking incident where having a light saved to group. A few years ago before finding CPF but after getting my first LED headlamp Petzl Zipka a large group of friends about 20 went for a hike to a swimming hole down in a canyon (Fossil Springs). We had a great time and stayed longer than we probably should have. By the time we started to head back th sun was setting and it was pitch black. I had my Zipka and my Nokia 3390 which I had changed all of the back lights to white smt LED's it was surprisingly bright with a clear case. The phone actually made a very usefully area light due to it's wide bright beam pattern which allowed most of the group to see where they were placing their feet. I think we hiked 4 miles like that.

Not exactly "survival" to speak but a flashlight did a wonderful job at keeping people calm when a crowded elevator got stuck during a power outage.
So instead of general panic, everyone ended up conversing about life, shopping, vacation spots and how half of our elevator population could have designed it better or fix the power faster. Good thing people can't see me rolling my eyes in the dark.
I did get a couple "nice light! can I see it?" and "I got to get myself one of those"...

Power went out in my office the other day for a few hours. The girls (and few guys) borrowed my lights to use in the restroom. I was their frickin' hero! :bow: Put a big smile on my for the rest of the day

I have used my lights in the following situations

1. Helped my friend change a dead battery in his car at 1 am, had been downtown partying and went back to discover his battery was dead. Bought a battery from a gas station and went to work.

2. Big storm knocked out the power at my friends house. I was over watching movies when it happened. Used my McLux all nite as it had the ability to tailstand. Candle mode is great for power outages.

3. Riding in a car with my friend when we went off into a ditch. A possum or rabbit had jumped in front of the car. Luckily the only damage was a wounded pride. Used my lights to check around the car and waited for the tow truck to come and get us.

4. Power outage at my apartment, it was still early morning, and i needed to get ready for the day. Put my light into the toothbrush cup to bounce light off the ceiling and carried on. The one time when a light was really really helpful.

Thats pretty much all the situations that needed a light.

My friends and I were back from the movies theater and we took a shortcut to get home by taking an old road who goes through the woods. My friend was the driver. All of a sudden the car slipped over black ice and the car crashed in the snow. The car was like at a 60º angle, nose pointing to the sky. Everyone was ok. There was no light at all. I used my Surefire L4 to light the area so we can shove the snow. I planted it in the snow near the car. After about 30 minutes of shoving we were able to push the car back on the road.

The next logical question is whether anyone has actually made use of that silly SOS mode every manufacturer seems to think is vital.

c_c

Quite recently. As you can tell, I'm a sucker for Maxabeams. Distance. Filters are pretty neat, too.

Well, you remember when the tornadoes hit the areas near Nashville? Well, our town caught the edge of the storm and power was out for a while. Luckily, I had my Maxabeam handy with fully juiced batteries. We went into the living room and watched a DVD on my laptop with the Maxabeam reflecting light off the ceiling on maximum spill.

Maxabeam saves the day again. o.o

Well, being in a Public Restroom stall, minding my own business,

when somebody (intentionally or not) turns the Lights Out ! :hairpull:


Without an EDC, that can indeed be a scary situation.


:eeew:



Plus, an EDC allows one to access Public Restrooms, even if
the lights / power is off. Done this LOTS of times. :thumbsup:


Also avoids having to feel all over the walls, searching for the light switch.

:toilet:
_

Hiking in Death Valley years ago with my wife. Beautiful hike, but it took longer than planned and it got very dark with a few miles of rough ground to go. I had a 3D Maglite with me which I had grumbled about the entire hike as it weighed a ton, but it did the trick just fine for the last 90 minutes of night hiking along steep dropoffs.

Modern 1 AA LED light would have been so much easier...

Curious_character said:

The next logical question is whether anyone has actually made use of that silly SOS mode every manufacturer seems to think is vital.

c_c

Click to expand...

I haven't heard ANY stories of the SOS being used - SOS should be changed to a 'flash every 5 seconds' type locator / beacon...

The new UA2 and UB2 should have this feature for rescue / Im lost scenarios and then another option on the selector ring for the battery meter led to flash every 5 secs - to act as a locator beacon type thing...

Now that would be some useful features!

Here. At 3AM. You slip, you die, bye bye! :wave:

I've used lights to help people out of caves, dark buildings, etc. on numerous occasions, as well as scaring away birds/racoons/motherinlaws/other nocturnal spooking things. It's tremendously useful to carry a light on a daily basis!

I got so wrapped up in asking the question and forgot to tell my story.

While camping with my family on the Texas gulf coast three years ago, the weather started turning for the worst around midnight. After listening to the radio for a few minutes, the weather reports were stating wind gust up to 75 mph were possible. Needless to say, we were not going to stay in the camper. The campground had a recreation hall made of metal so my family and a few other fellow campers decide to retreat into the safety of something a little sturdier than our campers. The weather approached so quickly, we had just enough time to get dressed, grab cell phones and like any flashaholic, grab a flashlight or two and make a 150 foot dash to the recreation hall. Just as you might guess, we lost power 10 minutes after we got to the recreation hall and no one else had remembered to bring a flashlight except for yours truly. With my trusty Streamlight TL-2 LED and my Arc AAA, I became the hero. The TL-2 LED pointing upward toward the ceiling gave more than enough light to navigate the large room and the Arc AAA became the "potty run" light (I guess you can call the Arc the "real emergency light". The power stayed off just until the weather bands dissipated, nearly 4 hours later. Although I can't really call this experience a survival situation, both lights passed the test and made a scary situation a lot easier to deal with (especially for the children involved).

Not a survival situation, but I had my Acro X990 in the car when I went into this general store and the lights cut out so I brought it end and let it bounce on the ceiling till they could get the backup lights running.