Adventurer survives after fall into ice hole (From The Argus)

Adventurer survives after fall into ice hole

12:52pm Wednesday 30th May 2007 in

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A teenage adventurer has survived a near-fatal fall into an ice hole during a pole-to-pole expedition.

Rob Gauntlett and his best friend James Hooper, both 19, were trekking across sea ice between Greenland and Canada with their Innuit hunter guides when disaster struck.

Rob, of Petworth, had walked back along his tracks to retrieve a lost glove when the partially-melted ice gave way and he plunged into the freezing water below.

James ran to his aid but the knee-deep, slushy snow made it difficult to move quickly.

In a message on the team's website James wrote: "By the time I arrived he had been in the icy water for more than three minutes.

"One of the hunters and I hauled Rob out of the water but he was unconscious.

"We ripped off his wet clothes and got him into a sleeping bag and then into a tent with a stove."

James used his satellite phone to call for help while he tried to warm Rob up.

He started to come round after half an hour but then started to shake violently. After an anxious four hour wait a helicopter picked the men up and took them to a hospital in Upernavik, on the north west coast of Greenland, where Rob was treated for concussion and the effects of the cold.

The accident happened on Saturday, two months into their epic 22,000 mile journey from the North Pole to the South Pole using manpower alone.

Speaking from the expedition headquarters at Christ's Hospital School in Horsham, where the pair went to school, assistant expedition manager Jon Winchester said Rob was now "up and raring to go".

He said: "Everyone was a bit shocked. We always knew it was a possibility that something like this would happen but you always hope it won't."

He said global warming had caused the sea ice they were travelling on to melt, and this was one of the issues they hoped to raise awareness of during the trip.

He said: "They were disappointed they had to use the helicopter because their aim is to be carbon neutral, but under the circumstances it was unavoidable really."

Undeterred by the accident, the pair will rest in Upernavik until the end of the week when a yacht is due to arrive to take them on the next leg of their journey.

They will spend a month sailing the boat down to New York, then cycle across the Americas to Panama over the summer. They will then sail to Ecuador, before jumping on their bikes again to get to Chile. They will then sail around Antarctica before arriving in Sydney in February 2008.

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