Ham radio saves a life on Chirikof Island

According to the Kodiak Daily Mirror, in July, Merle Elson of New Mexico, a member of the Russian Robinson Club (a group of exploration-minded amateur radio operators who go to great lengths to send and receive signals from very remote locations), started having a heart attack on Chirikof Island, about 180 miles southwest of the city of Kodiak. Chirikof Island is only inhabited by animals, including feral livestock and rather curious foxes, so Elson's life was at stake. His companions, Yuri Sushkin, Yuri Zaruba and Alexander Kuznetsov, managed to call for an EMT and floatplane by radioing an operator in Siberia. The emergency message then went to Moscow, then California, and on to Alaska. “We never had an emergency like this, and we never had so fast of a response,” Sushkin said. Elson was picked up, and is back home in New Mexico, apparently alive, but his condition wasn't specifically reported. Read much more, here, including lots about ham radio, and a brief account of the group's "wild cow showdown" on Chirikof Island.