How a flashlight could save a life..

A colleague of mine just passed away during a vacation in China.
I did not know him very well but we were part of a running group & we chat on a few occasions during runs.

Witnesses said that he stepped off the bus to throw his vomit bag & the next moment, they lost him.
Apparently, he fell off a cliff because the bus was parked too close to the edge of the cliff.
It was 4.30am in the morning & it was too dark for the rest of the group to do anything.
By the time it was bright enough to see him, he was lifeless already.

When I heard this story, a thought hit me..
What if he had a flashlight light with him, nothing too fanciful but something enough to light up the bus exit to see where he was stepping.
Perhaps he would be still alive right now.

- JonK

Dellsuperman, Sorry to hear about your friend passing. It could very well have saved his life just having a little light leading his way out the bus. Surprised the bus didn't go over the Cliffside as well. Terrible bus driver. Ive been watching shark week and discovered a bright scuba light at night can deter reef sharks from localizing themselves into a feeding frenzy upon an ill prepared diver after dusk. When the scuba light was cut out, the reef sharks congregated within seconds to attack the scuba diver. He was wearing steel chain mail mesh so none of the attempted bites from the reef sharks affected him. Interesting enough though I thought. SPC Smith

I was a police officer for 17 years, I can think of 2 fatalities that I worked where vehicles were unable to see a person along the side or on the road during poor lighting conditions. A light would have saved their lives. We were taught at the academy that your flashlight and vehicle positioning during a traffic stop was our defense against being struck by oncoming traffic. Those 2 accidents I was at the scene of really drove the point home to me.

Well I kind of did with my original LD20 q5 which was my first "good" led light. I was walking at night in Little Italy in Cleveland a few years back and I swept my beam across the street to the other sidewalk (I was on a residential street with little traffic) and suddenly I saw what looked like a zombie --deathly white and keeled over drooling.... it wasn't. I instantly did a double take in shock and brought my light back to where it was. It was pitch-black where my light had shone and an older guy had apparently had a heart attack probably after drinking a lot (from what the paramedics said they could smell from his bowel gas after performing cpr/etc.-- sorry if this is too graphic). I don't know if he lived honestly, but they were performing cpr on him and they were in the ambulance quite a while before they took him off. I don't know if that's a bad sign and honestly I don't know how long he was not breathing and slumped over there like that before I happened to find him. It was startling to say the least to find somebody looking like that if you've never seen it before. I know some of you here probably are in the medical or perhaps law enforcement fields.

Long story short I don't know if he died or possibly made it but with severe medical consequences, but I do know I and probably nobody else would have seen him until the next day when he would have been absolutely dead without question.

You simply think differently about your surroundings at night when you carry a high power flashlight. I use one for night walks to see where I'm going, a deterrent/defense, and also to see what's out where you just can't see without the sun present.

I think even one of the paramedics said he was glad I had the light I had (LD20) as they wouldn't have been able to work on him right there at all really in the pitch black. Hopefully they had their own lights though or more people are starting to get better ones. I think decent led lights (at least 50-100 lumens with near white tints) are pretty wide spread now which is great.

nvm...

Clearly no one here is friendly.

Vomit bag?

GrizzlyAdams said:

Vomit bag?

Click to expand...

Yeah, he was dizzy & nausea from the long bus ride.. And he wanted to dispose the bag.

- JonK

Wow, how awful. Sorry to hear that. You just never know when you're time's up.

Yeah, it was like a scene off a horror movie..
And i still believe that if he had a flashlight, it would have been a totally different story..

- JonK

Early on in my career I learned to have two each of many things I used nightly. Back maybe 15 years past I carried a big main light incandescent (Wolf-Eyes). This light worked perfectly however pulled pretty hard on a pair of regulated 18500 batteries.

I once chased a robbery suspect in a stolen car and he ran on foot after wrecking that stolen car. I was maybe 25 yards behind him and he ran inside a nearby building. I was so close I never slowed up and also went inside. I remember having maybe 2 seconds of light then poof the battery regulation kicked in and my main light was gone. I remembered I had an old school single cell 5 watt Surefire back up on my belt. For those who don't know it the old 5 watt SF simply threw a very bright wall of light and was simply a great little light.

As soon as I hit that tail switch I saw the reflection from his tennis shoe behind a stack of pallets. I never stopped moving forward and if I did not have that little SF backup I would have been right beside him with no light at all. He knew where I was anyway and when I pointed my weapon and blasted him with that light he stepped out knowing I had him.....bad part is he was holding a huge knife and dropped that too.

I would most likely had been ambushed however that little back up did its job well. I still have that light and will never forget how my hobby saved my life one night.

DellSuperman,
Very unfortunate about your colleague, while a light probably would have made a difference you never know what you'll need until you need it.


Robocop,
Similar incident happened to me, chased a guy (DV) into a backyard, heard him close but couldn't see him. I only carried one light with me when I worked (yeah I know) and when I turned it on it went to low power, blinked a few times, and turned off (not battery related, the light itself malfunctioned). Could never see him but I heard him move around and then hoping fences. He got away and I was very disappointed with my light, which was suppose to be top notch gear, and failed at the worst possible moment.