Two friends credit a phone app with saving their lives after their Land Rover sank in the desert
Two graduates who found themselves stranded in the salt pans of Botswana have credited a simple phone app with saving their lives.
Todd Benney, 24, and Henry Harrison, 23 were driving across Africa in a 1994 Land Rover Defender last year when disaster struck just six weeks into their trip.
The pair had begun a 70km (43.5 miles) drive over the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans when the engine started to struggle. Before long, the Land Rover began to sink into the ground.
Left stranded in the middle of nowhere, Benny and Harrison initially tried to trek 30km (18.6 miles) towards the nearest village in search of help, but when it got dark, they decided to turn around and attempt to find the car. However, spotting animal tracks, the pair started to panic.
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Benney explained: “It got to like 6:30pm and started getting dark, and we weren’t getting any closer. That’s when we noticed animal tracks towards the bush area… the only option we have is to walk through the bush and risk getting eaten alive or walking back to try and find the car.”
The friends decided to head back, using a screenshot of Google Maps to try and locate the car. Luckily, that was when Harrison remembered he had used an app to save the Land Rover’s location on his phone.
Known as what3words, the app divides the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares, and assigns each square a unique combination of three words - and to make things even better, the pair didn’t need phone signal or data connection to find their own location or navigate using the app’s compass mode.
Harrison continued: “It gave us a direction to walk in. We found out we were further from the car than we thought. Then we saw the moon catch one of the wing mirrors; it was a great moment. We knew we could sleep in the car and not in the middle of the desert.”
With the help of what3words, they were able to get back to the car to fill up on water before trekking back out to the village.
Harrison added: “By the end, we were just dripping water drops into our mouths; it was boiling and there was no shade.”
The walk took 14 hours spread over two days, where the pair covered 70km of ground - which Harrison managed to complete in Birkenstocks - before they were finally able to find help.
Noticing a security gate manned by two guards, Benny recalled how he ‘hobbled over’ to beg for water.
He went on to say: “They asked what happened; I was so emotional I was fighting back tears. I was so happy we got out, I couldn’t even speak.”
Within minutes, the pair were met by the police, an ambulance and even the army. Speaking to the men, one police commander asked how they had managed to escape the animals in the salt pans, with Harrison saying: “He said a couple got lost a year ago and they were never found.”
This hit home just how dangerous the area had been. Thanking what3words directly, Benney said: “You guys saved our lives, literally. Without what3words, we were about to sleep out on the open salt pan and most likely not have survived the night.”
After being submerged for four days, the Land Rover was successfully recovered and the friends carried on with their trip, visiting Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya, before heading home to the UK.