Diva
05-08-02, 01:05AM
News (http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSTopNews/phone_may07-ap.html) - VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- A man who spent last weekend at the bottom of a steep embankment after a car crash that broke his back was saved by a deactivated cellphone that still allowed him to call 911.
Steven Stacey, 48, lost control of his car Friday night on a rural road near Quesnel in central British Columbia. It plunged down a steep embankment and bounced off several times before landing upside down nearly 80 feet from the road. Stacey found himself suspended by his seat belt.
"It took me five hours to get the seat belt off," Stacey said from his bed at G.R. Baker Memorial Hospital in Quesnel, where he is being treated for severe hypothermia, dehydration and several fractures. "I tried to burn it with my cigarette lighter."
Stacey spent the first night in the car, using a seat cover like a sleeping bag. Over the next two nights, a snowstorm dropped about eight inches of wet snow on the overturned car.
When he was conscious, he cried for help. But no one heard his cries. By Saturday, he tried to crawl up the embankment. His injuries forced him back down.
Stacey has lived in the area for 18 years but, unemployed and with no family living nearby, he knew no one would miss him.
He survived by eating ice. "It was a Godsend to have something wet," he said.
It was Sunday when he remembered his old, deactivated cellphone, locked in the glove compartment. He'd bought a new one Friday but it wasn't yet working.
But breaking into the glove compartment proved difficult because of his injuries.
By the time he had the phone out and was attempting a 911 call, it was dawn on Monday. The emergency feature still worked. He reached an operator, who told him to call back in five minutes.
"But then my phone went dead," he said. Within minutes, he heard sirens, but they were searching too far away.
He tried the phone again and reached an operator who directed the rescuers to him. Stacey suffered two lower back fractures, fractured ribs and a fractured sternum. That man had more than luck on his side. The strengths we have that we don't even know about until we HAVE to use them amazes me. I wonder how well I would fare in that situation. I hope I could do well enough to survive it, but his endurance amazes me.
Steven Stacey, 48, lost control of his car Friday night on a rural road near Quesnel in central British Columbia. It plunged down a steep embankment and bounced off several times before landing upside down nearly 80 feet from the road. Stacey found himself suspended by his seat belt.
"It took me five hours to get the seat belt off," Stacey said from his bed at G.R. Baker Memorial Hospital in Quesnel, where he is being treated for severe hypothermia, dehydration and several fractures. "I tried to burn it with my cigarette lighter."
Stacey spent the first night in the car, using a seat cover like a sleeping bag. Over the next two nights, a snowstorm dropped about eight inches of wet snow on the overturned car.
When he was conscious, he cried for help. But no one heard his cries. By Saturday, he tried to crawl up the embankment. His injuries forced him back down.
Stacey has lived in the area for 18 years but, unemployed and with no family living nearby, he knew no one would miss him.
He survived by eating ice. "It was a Godsend to have something wet," he said.
It was Sunday when he remembered his old, deactivated cellphone, locked in the glove compartment. He'd bought a new one Friday but it wasn't yet working.
But breaking into the glove compartment proved difficult because of his injuries.
By the time he had the phone out and was attempting a 911 call, it was dawn on Monday. The emergency feature still worked. He reached an operator, who told him to call back in five minutes.
"But then my phone went dead," he said. Within minutes, he heard sirens, but they were searching too far away.
He tried the phone again and reached an operator who directed the rescuers to him. Stacey suffered two lower back fractures, fractured ribs and a fractured sternum. That man had more than luck on his side. The strengths we have that we don't even know about until we HAVE to use them amazes me. I wonder how well I would fare in that situation. I hope I could do well enough to survive it, but his endurance amazes me.