Over the weekend of 22 – 23 April a group of seven of us were doing a two-day hike from Sentinel car park to Ifidi cave and back. About 200 m from Ifidi cave, while we were traversing the steep slope to enter the cave, Magdaleen sprained her ankle and fell. She passed out for a while, but soon regained consciousness. Her ankle immediately started swelling and it was far too painful to step on it. It was clear that she tore some ligaments and we also could not rule out that something was broken. We decided to call the mountain rescue and one of the members of our group, Dieter, a doctor, strapped her foot up and decided that she should not put weight on her foot at all.
We then continued to Idifi cave for the night, Magdaleen mostly crawled there, as it was quite hard to move her over the steep terrain. It was quickly getting dark at this time, and since it was not a critical injury MSR decided to pick her up the next morning, rather than execute a night extraction. We then had a warm and comfortable night in Ifidi cave, despite the Volksblad headline of “Vrou van berg gered na nag in koue grot”.
Sunday morning, Dieter and Magdaleen moved to that point about 50m outside of the cave, which we thought were the best spot, since we expected an air hoist. At 9h00 the helicopter arrived, to our surprise the pilot put the one wheel down right
next to them and kept the helicopter there as stable as a rock. They picked Magdaleen up, took their backpacks and went off roughly a minute later. An incredible sight!
I would also really like to thank 15 Squadron SAAF and MCSA KZN Mountain Search and Rescue, you are really amazing!!!
Chris Joubert