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Hey Insiders, this is Christian once again.... here with Ed. Ed was basically out of Council today and got some type of communication to head out that way by the river and came across Gerhardt and Bridgett and ..... he's going to tell what he came across:
Ed: Yeah, so they were there kind of hunkered down in the snow, dogs covered in snow and at first I think they thought I was going to pass them, cause it was real icy right there. They waved me down and I pulled over and first got one dog out and then started game planning cause they were in ground storm - good visibility but just real bad ground storm and thought well - the best place is go a couple of miles back into the trees by Klokerblok (River).
So we took all the stuff out of Gerhardt's sled and put it into Bridgett's and then loaded 6 or 7 dogs into his sled. And then Bridgett rode the sled, hooked on to my rig and we went back to Klokerblok out of the wind; got them situated and then I took the sled empty back to Gerhardt. He was there, loaded up another 6 -7 dogs.
And then going back, Gerhardt fell off and we were going real slow but it was just so windy - fell off, broke his ankle is what he's thinking and so I left the dogs there, hopped him on the rig, brought him to Bridgett. Bridgett and I went back, grabbed the dogs because they were only half a mile away maybe - and got back to Gerhardt and he was saying he was hypothermic so we figured - I said "you know what - just hop on with me; I can just bring you to WM real quick" and uh, so I came here. Sounds like SAR, sounds like there's a bunch of people out there so I don't think they need my services any more.
Thanks were said by Christian, etc.
Hey Insiders, this is Christian again. I'm just giving you a little update here at WM. Update on the situation that just happened 15 or so miles out of here.
From what I just saw, Bridgett Watkins is here. They just took her over to the clinic, not the checkpoint, to be evaluated. And from what I've heard there are SAR people still with her dogs out there but the VPSO here said that we should be seeing some more people come back here from that site shortly. So nothing really too major to report other than Bridgett is here at WM and we'll give you some updates when we've got them. Stay positive.
drift Siberians Natalie Andre is with Andre van der Merwe and
2 others
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UPDATE FROM NOME
3:25pm 03/18
We have some very sad news from the trail - after being caught in 45 mph ground wind storm (along with some other teams that were all travelling together), being pinned down and then crashing (this all happed 16 miles outside of White Mountain) - Gerhardt has a possible broken ankle and he has scratched from the 2022 Iditarod. The dogs are all absolutely OK! Gerhardt is on his way to Nome via medi-vac. The dog team will be flown to Nome ASAP.
Although heart-wrenching for everyone, especially Gerhardt and AJ, - Gerhardt still remains our hero!!!! Go Team Green & Gold!
Our hero travelled 914 miles down the historic Iditarod Trail - a mere 61 miles from the finish line. There will be stories from the trail - you can all be very sure of that!
Thank you to every single supporter of this amazing team - one badass South African musher and his amazing team of sled dogs!
We salute you our friend!
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