A Canadian tourist who broke his foot on a remote Norwegian island used smoke signals to call for his rescue. However, he accidentally set a large part of the island on fire, reports News.com.au.
The unidentified 25-year-old-male was on the island of Hillesoy when he broke his foot, stranding him for three days in an area with no cell phone reception. He decided to light the fire Thursday to attract attention.
The fire soon burned out of control, and it took 20 firefighters to fight the flames back by Friday morning. Though 200 to 300 people live on the other side of the island, they did not appear to be in danger.
Meanwhile, the tourist was airlifted to a hospital and treated for "moderate" injuries.
Joran Bugge, who headed the police rescue operation, told The Local : “It’s illegal to start this kind of fire, but in this case the police aren’t going to take any action."
Cases of hikers going missing or becoming injured is not uncommon. In April, a woman was rescued after four days with a broken leg in the Utah wilderness. That same month, two Utah teens were rescued after they started singing to help rescuers find them. Some, unfortunately, have been less lucky, as there seemed to be a rash of hiker deaths last summer. At Yosemite, for instance, one teenager was killed after slipping on the park's Mist Trail, while another fell from the Half Dome.
Through August of last year, America's national parks had 113 unintentional deaths in 2011, down from 126 in 2010.