A lost snowmobiler and the men who rescued him in the Cape Breton Highlands had an emotional reunion on Monday.
“Scary, real scary,” said Hughie Whalen at his home in Glace Bay, N.S. “I thought I was going to die.”
Whalen had been out for a ride with his friend David Metcalfe, also of Glace Bay, on Friday.
He said they were at the Pig and Whistle snowmobilers' shed when it started to get dark.
“I’ve never ridden a snowmobile at night, ever in my life,” Whalen said. “With the storm brewing, I said, ‘We’d better get going.’ I think I waited a little bit too long.”
Whalen said the pair started getting stuck in snow drifts and the visibility became so poor they couldn’t their way back to the snowmobilers’ shed.
He said he separated from his friend to try to find help, but with conditions only getting worse he nearly gave up hope.
“I’m all alone now. I’m in a six-foot snow drift. I’m done. I give up,” he recalled. “I just said, ‘That’s it, there’s nothing I can do. I just hope my wife is worried about me and called for help.’”
Whalen’s wife Stephanie had asked for help. A group of three fellow snowmobilers drove to the remote area in the early hours of the morning.
“When Stephanie got a hold of us, we had to do something,” said Scott Rafuse, one of the rescuers.
At about 3 a.m., the group found Whalen.
“He was sitting on his running board with his jacket open and his helmet flipped up, and I didn’t even know who he was,” Rafuse said. “I had to ask him and I got a (response) from him saying, ‘I’m Hughie.’”
Rafuse added they weren’t able to actually free Whalen until hours later, after they called a friend who owned a groomer to clear a path in the snow.
Metcalfe was still out there. He’d dug a hole in the snow and blocked it with his machine to survive the elements.
A major search-and-rescue effort began on Saturday morning, one that included RCMP incident command, at least two area fire departments, Cape Breton Ground Search & Rescue, along with helicopters and others who contributed to the effort.
Metcalfe was finally found mid-afternoon on Saturday and brought back to the Pig and Whistle to begin his recovery.
When Whalen was asked how he might ever repay his rescuers, the gravity of everything that had happened seemed to hit the man and his friends.
“I don’t know. They saved my life. Yup, they saved my life,” Whalen said, fighting back tears. “These guys were crazy enough to go up there. Thank God, man. I’d definitely do the same for them.”
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