Man, 51, survives three days in woods

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This article was published 06/02/2011 (5434 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A man injured by a fallen tree in the bush in the Interlake was rescued Saturday after spending three days outside lying in the snow.

RCMP said the 51-year-old man had been dropped off on a property off Highway 7 near the hamlet of Meleb north of Winnipeg three days ago.

The man used the property about 10 kilometres north of Fraserwood for cutting firewood. While he was doing that, a tree fell. It didn’t pin him but it injured him enough that he couldn’t walk out of the woods.

His ride came back three days later and couldn’t find him at the meeting place. The friend looked around and found the man in the woods.

RCMP, fire and emergency personnel used a rescue toboggan to pull the man to the roadway, where he was transported to hospital with non-life-threatening undetermined injuries.

Despite his ordeal, the man is in good condition. “He should be just fine,” said RCMP spokesman Miles Hiebert.

Overnight, temperatures dropped to -25 C Wednesday, -12 C Thursday night and just below zero Friday night, Environment Canada reports. During the day, temperatures rose to a high of 3 C on Friday.

“He’s lucky somebody come,” said Anna Yablonski at the general store in nearby Fraserwood. The community was abuzz over the rescue and the man’s ordeal, she said.

While it’s been unusually mild weather for the last few days, and it’s warmer in the shelter of the bush, it’s hard to believe someone could have survived a fourth night injured and exposed to the winter elements, she said.