Woman rescued from Bump Track, lost hiker winched from Mt Tyson in busy weekend for emergency services in the Far North

The State Emergency Service has outlined a tip that could help save your life in the event of an emergency, after a wild weekend that involved a number of major operations.

EMERGENCY services are urging nature enthusiasts to pack personal locator beacons or at the very least a spare battery back for their mobile phones to make any potential rescue easier in the event things go awry.

State Emergency Service volunteers were kept busy over the weekend, with a 25-year-old man eventually winched from Mt Tyson after he got lost on Saturday afternoon, and a 23-year-old woman being stretchered to safety after breaking her ankle on the Bump Track near Port Douglas.

Volunteers at the Mount Tyson rescue

SES regional duty officer Matt Currey said a total of 13 SES members helped stretcher the woman who broke her ankle 2.5km to the top of the Bump Track on Saturday morning, getting her to safety and an ambulance after an hour-long rescue.

Mr Currey said the SES were then called to a search and rescue at Mt Tyson above Tully where a 25-year-old who had become disoriented and walk off the track.

Three SES members assisted Queensland Police in a search of the walking track, speaking to the lost man on his mobile phone and trying to use a GPS location off the device to pinpoint him.

After beginning the search at 2pm, and with light quickly fading, the man was winched to safety by the QGAir Rescue 510 helicopter at about 6.30pm.

Mr Currey said the SES and QPS searchers were safely off the mountain by about 8pm.

With a gruelling Mount Bartle Frere rescue of a 23-year-old Parramatta Park woman earlier in May still fresh in his mind, Mr Currey said it was important for people to be prepared when they head into the great outdoors.

“The weather can change at a moment’s notice so just make sure you’re prepared and have a bit of water and food with you, enough to get you through,” he said.

“And don’t overdo your expectations, your ability of what you're capable of.”

Police at the Mount Tyson rescue

Mr Currey stressed that the cost of a GPS or emergency locator beacon was well worth the pay-off if it ended up saving a person’s life.

He said another simple thing hikers could do is take a battery pack for their phone in the event it runs out of juice.

“If they’re in phone range, we can get their GPS data, we can get them to download an app to tell us what their GPS location is, and they can send us a screenshot,” he said.

Often, phone batteries go flat quickly when in areas of limited reception because they are working so hard to pick up signal.

“That’s where we run into issues. Remember to pack it and remember to make sure it’s got some charge in it,” Mr Currey said.

Originally published as Woman rescued from Bump Track, lost hiker winched from Mt Tyson in busy weekend for emergency services in the Far North