12/16/2003: Scrawled SOS saves man

54-year-old British nature tourist Howard Holdsworth was in barren Western Australia, driving alone to a nature preserve, but he mistakenly drove past it. And then he found his vehicle bogged down until it wouldn't move.

At that point he was totally stranded on a beautiful section of beach. But without fresh water he would soon be in trouble. So he created this huge SOS banner in the sand, which a routine passing coastline patrol happened to sea. They mounted a rescue and Mr. Holdsworth is fine.

I include it here because you always see standed people and castaways making these big SOS signs and flashing their belt buckles at passing ships and planes, but this is the first time I've ever heard of it actually working.

Reminds me of when Gilligan screwed up the burning log SOS and changed it to SOL. A passing plane said, "Hmmm, SOL, must be the islanders' way of greeting us."

...be gentle...

Angle's all wrong. Looks like he's lying on the beach..

Cute overall..

Why would anyone go so far out into the deadly booneys without, at minimum, a radio - one that also transmits?

UT posted: "which a routine passing coastline patrol happened to sea."

The way I see it, they were a Class C sea patrol complete with a seeing eye dog that saw them. :)

Why waste energy underlining SOS ?

This was on the front page of our paper the other day, he wasnt the only one in the team. my paper read there was another tourist who decided not to wait with his vehicle and try to walk to a nearby aborigional community for help, but he died en route -" if your lost in the bush you gotta stay with your vehicle and wait for help, if you try walking away - its a matter of hours, not days before your dead." apparently it was something like 47 degrees the day they got bogged.

i used to live in Dubbo on a property and although we were only 80 K from township, i stiill had a radio CB, 3 way attached to my car, and also a portable in my glovebox just in case i had to walk to get a signal. I feel the Australian Tourism Association should have more assistance for the tourists that come here, everyday you hear of someone lost in the desert! or picking up a hitchhiker! or just not expecting the dangerous heat and terrain that we have here!

(why underline?) So they would know which way was up, silly!

(I'm just trying to match my current user title, which is back to "often wrong")

The story (which I forgot to link) mentioned that he did have some survival skills, but he found it difficult to put them to use, because it was so hot he couldn't think straight.

Originally posted by Undertoad
(why underline?) So they would know which way was up, silly!

(I'm just trying to match my current user title, which is back to "often wrong")

which ever way (up or down) you look at SOS it is still SOS.

(im just pointing out the already pointed out obvious and makin a fool of sun_sparkz arnt i?)

Originally posted by Sun_Sparkz

which ever way (up or down) you look at SOS it is still SOS.
(im just pointing out the already pointed out obvious and makin a fool of sun_sparkz arnt i?)

I expect so.
But that makes it an ambigram, which is cool.

Maybe he underlined it because he was trying to make it a link.

We're so technologically adapted these days, it is hard to separate yourself from it...I once tried to turn on the TV during a power outage in an ice storm to watch the Weather Channel...

I know, sometimes in winter when the gas runs out i still walk up and stand in front of the heater, when its not even on! forces of habit.

Originally posted by Elspode
Maybe he underlined it because he was trying to make it a link.

Good thing I wasn't drinking anything. I'd have sprayed my monitor. :) That one snuck up on me.

Originally posted by FileNotFound
Angle's all wrong. Looks like he's lying on the beach..

Cute overall..

Bitch, bitch, bitch.:D Welcome to the Cellar, Divid.

Hey! I was trying to be as gentle as possible. I said nothing about the scale and the visible 'smears' around the guy!

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
Bitch, bitch, bitch.:D Welcome to the Cellar, Divid.

Thanx Bruce...as far as newb posts go, mine seemed to fly-by fairly unnoticed:D

Here's the BBC story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/3314895.stm

The things I found interesting were that he was stranded for 3 days before he was found, and:

"He had made the SOS sign in wet sand by shuffling his feet below the high-tide line to indicate it had been written recently."

That's pretty clever for someone suffering from heatstroke.

(Of course on the other hand it means that you have to re-do it every 12 hours. And what if a plane flies by at high tide?)

http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,8153838%255E903,00.html

This says that the other stranded guy who died was unrelated to this one.

"A Coastwatch spotter saw the SOS and noticed Mr Holdsworth and his car on a second sweep. They took photographs of a waving Mr Holdsworth and e-mailed the pictures back to Broome police. The pictures were so clear that Sgt Jon Groves was able to read the logo on Mr Holdsworth's hire car. He called the firm to discover the identity of the stranded tourist."

I'm trying to find out how big his SOS was, but nobody seems to say. I can't get a sense of its size from the pictures.

Originally posted by DividableFiend
Thanx Bruce...as far as newb posts go, mine seemed to fly-by fairly unnoticed:D

That's because you were supposed to come in and start correcting everyone's spelling and shit and then be shocked when they respond unkindly. Hey, whatever happened to LU...nevermind.

Quzah.

Originally posted by axlrosen



I'm trying to find out how big his SOS was, but nobody seems to say. I can't get a sense of its size from the pictures.

Well, the guy made them with his feet. He's wearing shoes. My feet in shoes are about 12 inches (or one foot) in length. All you have to do is count the footprints he made. A quick look at the footprints, and a little estimating, makes me think the letters are about 40 feet tall, and the entire message is about 100 feet long. You could always enlarge the picture and actually count the feet instead of estimating, and you will get a pretty exact number. But I think I'm pretty darn close.

Here are a few more words that read the same right-side-up and upside-down:

ale
axe
dollop
hoy
mow
nu
pod
yeah

I've also done a bunch of names, but they require a bit of creativity with the font.

Scott Kim made his reputation on this kind of thing ... both in the pages of Omni Magazine, and as the illustrator of several chapters of Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.

I have Scott Kim's book "Inversions", it's pretty cool.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1559532807

I like Wordplay , by John Langdon. I believe he is a protege of Scott Kim.