Around here the two go hand in hand. Because the truth is, a Gerber isn't a Gerber until it's got a few (or a few hundred) stories under its belt.
I wanted to start off by thanking Gerber for a multitude of great products. I started my collection of Gerber items with a Gerber Mark 11 # H8441S.
I have a Summer/Winter Vacation home near El Paso TX and own a few horses and very often we ride our horses in the desert at night. I carry a Bug Out pack (emergency pack) with me and in it are always several Gerber products such as a camp ax, pruning kit, strike force fire starter, folding spade, spare multi-plier. Gator fillet knife and multi-plier on my belt always and my mark 11 alice clipped to my pack and other essentials incase of an emergency or unexpected overnight stay due to injury of Horse or man.
On this particular ride we were riding in a dry arroyo when my daughter's horse got tangled in some buried barbwire and it started to panic in pain and threw my daughter from his back. The horse tried to run and fell got up and was jumping about in pain. I jumped off my horse pulled my daughter away saw that she was fine ran to my horse for the rope and roped her horse and clamed it down enough to get near. With every move he was making the wire got tighter and tighter and it started cutting in deeper and deeper, I immediately pulled my multi-plier out shook it open and started cutting the wire away, as you may know barbed wire is heavy gauge steel and my multi-plier cut trough it saving my daughters horse from further injury. Had it not been for the muti-plier the wire would have cut the horses tendons and probably broke both legs from the pain and it would have to been put down.
On this night most of your tools were put to good use and I'm grateful to Gerber for making an excellent product.
I didn't know at the time if the injuries very serious or not but I wasn't taking any chances so my daughter started collecting some mesquite wood and cut it with the Gerber Camp axe, we used the Strike Force fire starter to start a fire it was getting very cold and I wanted to keep the horse warm because it was shaking from shock, I used a space blanket I had in my pack to keep the horse warm and taped it on with duct-tape,
I used the Gerber folding spade to hammer some stakes into the ground to tie the horses down while my daughter was cutting wood. My daughter took my horse and went for help while I bandaged the horse and stopped the bleeding with a first aide kit in my bag the first aide has a pair of Gerber fishing line scissors that I used to cut bandages. My daughter returned with the sheriff and some local ranchers we determined that the horse could be walked and we walked it to a nearby highway were a rancher had parked with a horses trailer to assist us.
We used a total of five life saving products that night. The only thing I was missing was a good light either a Gerber head lamp or a Gerber flashlight would have been very useful because the fire light was not enough to see the injuries. The horse would not come near enough to the fire. A Gerber hydration pack would have been ideal too since I was dying of thirst form all the adrenalin and the horse could have used some water to drink for the shock and wound cleaning, Little towelettes are not good for large injuries.
Thanks again Gerber, and one more thing a multi-plier in the hand is better than a roll of quarters as a would be mugger found out the hard way. So I will add a few things to my wish list like a Gerber head lamp, Gerber flash light and a Gerber military hydration pack.
Tomas Tobias
