A personal locator beacon could save your life.
The products, called personal locator beacons, “are really devices of last resort,” said the vice president for sales and marketing for A.C.R. Electronics, a leading manufacturer of the beacons, which give lost hikers or stranded climbers a way to alert search-and-rescue teams at the push of a button. That’s because more than half of the people who do turn on his outdoor rescue devices “are at the point of death,” he said, and are otherwise out of options.
After years of being used by private pilots and boaters, the beacons were approved by the FCC for use on land in 2003. But until recently, they have not sold well. The recent spike in demand followed two fatal headline-making events in Oregon last year: the deaths of three climbers on Mount Hood and the death of James Kim, who left his stranded family in the frigid, rugged mountains of southern Oregon to seek help on foot.
Don’t be cought away from help without a personal locator beacon.