A thank you from a generous donor!
Dear Georgia Appalachian Trail Club Members:
I am writing to let you know how wonderful one of your members is, and how grateful my son and I are for the assistance she gave us back in September when we were backpacking on the AT.
As we hiked on our fourth day, we stopped at the campground near Lance Creek to have lunch. Shortly after eating lunch and getting back on the trail my son had a severe allergic reaction to perhaps something he inhaled (there was a young man with a roaring fire who may have been burning poison ivy mixed with his wood). Although my son seemed to respond well to the Benadryl I gave him, his face was swollen, he was wheezing, and he needed medical attention.
As I was trying to figure out how to get back to civilization, a woman we had passed earlier working on trail drainage happened by. She quickly offered assistance, noting that her house was only a few hundred feet from the trail and asked if we wanted her to call 911. I told her that my son’s condition seemed to have stabilized at that point and that if we could get to our car we could drive to a hospital to get check out.
At that point she offered to drive us directly to the hospital, but since my son was not getting worse I asked if she could drive us to our car at Neels Gap. She put my son’s heavy pack on her back and we walked to her car. She then drove us to Neel’s Gap. Once at our car, I asked for her contact information and she gave me one of her business cards. My son and I drove to the hospital in Dahlonega where he was thoroughly checked out, given some additional medication, and released. In the ruckus I misplaced the business card. Since that time I have been looking for that card to no avail.
As a small token of our gratitude for the assistance given to us that day back in September, please accept the enclosed donation to the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club.