Five hikers were walking along a trail in British Columbia, Canada, when they were alerted that two men had slipped off a rock and fallen into a pool just before the rapids below.
Quick thinking: On Oct. 11, Kuljinder Kinda, a Sikh electrician from Punjab, India, and his friends were hiking in Golden Ears Provincial Park when a group ahead told them to call for help, NBC News reported.
- The five friends didn’t have service on their phones and couldn’t find any park personnel for the 10 minutes that they searched. Instead, they came up with the idea to fashion together a makeshift rope out of their turbans and other clothing to pull the men back up.
- They weren’t afraid for their own safety, rather they worried about the stranded men.
- “In Sikhi, we are taught to help someone in any way we can with anything we have, even our turban,” Kinda said.
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- The friends made a rope roughly 33 feet long and tugged the other two hikers out of the lower falls.
- Ridge Meadows Search and Rescue Manager Robert Laing, who arrived at the scene after the rescue, commended Kinda and his friends for their bravery and said that the two men fell in because they didn’t see the waterfall hazard signs.
- “I’ve never heard of anything like this before and it was quite impressive,” Laing told Global News.
- “Several people are injured each year as a result of slips or falls,” he added. “It seems about once every one to two years, someone will be swept over the falls and die as a result of their injuries.”
- The act of kindness echoed that of an incident last October in Calgary, Alberta, when several elderly Sikh men rushed to the aid of two teen girls who fell through the ice in a frozen pond and also unfurled their turbans to fish them out.
Featured Image via NBC News
