09 March 2017

Musher Falls Asleep & Off His Sled

Iditarod Insider: Linwood Fiedler fell asleep on sled, arrived in Ruby an hour after his dogs
(article here)
 
RUBY, Alaska (KTUU) The Iditarod Insider reports that veteran musher Linwood Fiedler's dog team arrived in Ruby without the musher overnight.
 
In a video posted to the Iditarod website, several people in the checkpoint can be seen gathering around the dogs. "Where's Linwood?" someone asks.
 
Insider analyst Bruce Lee explains that the team "came in without a musher." "Now you've seen it all," a camera operator says at one point.
 
The Insider writes that Fiedler arrived an hour later into the village checkpoint and that the musher and his dogs are "in fine condition." "Apparently he fell asleep and fell off his sled," Insider writes.
 
Fiedler, 63, told KTUU before the Iditarod that he planned to be a "rabbit" early in the race, moving fast on the trail but taking long rests at checkpoints.
 
Fiedler officially arrived in Ruby at 4:09 a.m. He has finished 18 Iditarods and placed as high as second, in 2001.
 
By the time they reach Ruby on this alternate Iditarod route, Mushers have been on flat, relatively "boring" trail along the Yukon River for about 120 miles. Conditions that could make it easy to fall asleep, racer Rick Casillo said in Manley Hot Springs

4 comments:

hobo said...

Oops... now that wasn't good.

Rev. Paul said...

hobo, it's not the first time it's happened. Race officials were joking, a few years ago, about how one guy had to put a seat belt on his sled. :)

LindaG said...

Haha. He should have strapped himself in as you said. ;-)

Rev. Paul said...

Linda, there are worse ideas.