Dubai Police to the rescue of dune bashers.

Dubai Police come to rescue of dune bashers
By Maysam Ali, Staff Reporter
Published in Gulf News : August 11, 2008, 23:23

Dubai: Laura McKinsey did not predict the outcome of her dune bashing plans when she set out with five of her friends for an afternoon to Sharjah’s Fossil Rock.

Laura, a British national who works for an investment company, spent six hours in the desert trying to identify their location and finally called the Dubai Police Search and Rescue Team.

“We went out for a drive to Fossil Rock in Sharjah about 4pm, then went driving across the dunes in the desert; half an hour later, we got stuck. The engine broke down and it was getting dark. We were the only ones there,” Laura said.

“We called Sharjah Police but they weren’t able to help us because our GPS coordinates were wrong. Dubai Police sent out a rescue team who found us,” she said.

An hour after efforts to restart the engine failed, they decided to call for help.

“We called 999 and were redirected to Dubai Police,” Dustin Cherniawsky, a Canadian, told Gulf News.

After attempts to track the group down on the GPS system failed, Dubai Police asked two of the group to go to the nearest water pumping station and tell them the name of the area written on it.

Shortly after that, the rescue team met the two men and drove them back to their car. The rescue team finally found the group around midnight.

“They had lit a fire to guide us to their spot,” Captain Khalid Ebrahim Al Hammadi, Head of the Task Force Section of Dubai Police’s General Department of Operations, said.

“We helped them release the car and go to the nearest gas station to fix the tyres,” he added.

For the desert adventurers, the experience was not bad because the Dubai Police were very helpful, they said.

“Captain Khalid was always with us on the phone. He clearly knew the area very well,” Laura said.

Cherniawsky added: “We were pretty worried until we spoke to Dubai Police.”

Captain Khalid Al Hammadi advised residents to be careful when they go dune bashing because it requires skill and training.

“It’s better to take two cars if you’re going in a group so that one can support the other if the vehicle is stuck. If they don’t mean to camp, it’s better if adventurers go during daylight because it’s easier to get lost and get stuck in the desert at night,” he added.

He also said knowing how to use the GPS system is crucial for the police to be able to locate residents should they get lost in the desert.

Foot note….Do not venture out alone in the desert, nor in the company of inexperienced adventurers :blink: