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Can You Hear Me Now?
squarefish writes "CNN has this story about a hiker stranded in South America's Andes mountains when a blizzard begins. He reaches into his backpack for his cell phone -- only to find his prepaid minutes are up. Out of nowhere, a phone company solicitor is calling on his cell phone, asking if he would like to buy more time. Is this convenient or what?"
Law of averages. They call so often, it's really no surprise that they'd call at a point where you'd need someone to call. Has to happen sooner or later.
At least in the US, cellphone carriers are required by law to allow all 911 calls through on any cellphone, whether it's activated or not. The law is pretty strictly enforced, too. It's reasonable to assume that wherever he was, a similar service or law exists.
I can imagine that 1) there was some sort of equivalent service in his area, and 2) his service should have a number to call, like '0' or '611' to talk to someone about adding minutes to his calling plan. The guy was smart enough (and lucid enough) to know that chilling batteries rejuvenates them to some extent, but couldn't figure out how to get a hold of anyone on a service that doesn't require "charged" minutes? He's getting more credit than he deserves.
Regardless, if such emergency services aren't available where he was, let it be a lesson to the carriers there. Someone could easily hold them liable for not permitting emergency calls to go through, where life-threatening situations exist.
"next we'll be hearing a story about how spam saved someone's life. (i don't care whether its the canned or electronic kind, would be interesting either way :))"
If you talk to people who were living in some of the more devastated parts of postwar Europe, they'll tell you with a completely straight face that Spam (the canned kind) DID save their life - it was some of the only food available.
It sounds like a urban legend to me.
To give the story some credibility it should have stated where he was found.
This fact could be compared with known base stations, and verified the claim or if it was possible.
On a side note, the ad on the page was for prepaid phone cards!
Carbon based humanoid in training.
Wasnt the baker also a very large man? The surface to volume ratio might have had something to do with it too.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I doubt he knew of local customs (assuming he's from the USA -- I don't know if BellSouth runs cell systems outside the USA). He's not very well informed.
- He didn't know this blizzard was approaching -- or that conditions made it likely.
- He packed brandy instead of more necessary equipment -- like cell phone batteries or something that might have helped him not become "stranded" or "lost"...or a sleeping bag.
- He got "lost". At least we don't know if it was his fault (no GPS? no map? not watching landmarks on the way in? just went "up" and didn't know the way back to town? couldn't read the trail signs in Spanish? no guide?) or not (genetically unable to learn map reading? white-out blizzard hid landmarks? -- how did rescuers get to him, then?).
- He thought brandy would help keep him warm.
- He left his cell phone on after he thought it was useless, instead of making his only battery last longer in case he thought of a use for it.
- He thought cold was charging his battery. More likely just letting it rest is what allowed it to work again for a short time.
- He had been putting his batteries in the freezer without knowing why he should. (Because it slows the chemical reactions which discharge even an unused battery.) And in the time since he was a child he hadn't found out.
- He chose prepaid minutes but didn't make sure he had some for the climb...and he reached for his phone because he thought it was usable.
- He thought there was cellular coverage in the mountains.
He certainly was more lucky than good.Local customs? as in every other country in the world?