“Using my auditory skills to help people who encounter difficulties during hiking or mountain climbing brings me indescribable happiness,” said Yang Nei-tsung (楊內棕), who has been legally blind since the age of 10 months.
Yang, 53, lost the sight in both eyes after developing a serious fever. From early on, Yang became a big fan of amateur radio and made many friends communicating with amateur radio enthusiasts nationwide.
All this chatter trained him to listen to unclear voices through the hiss and noise of poor radio reception.
Aware of his gift, about 20 years ago Yang’s friends suggested he join International Headquarters Search and Rescue, Taiwan, a non-governmental organization that provides disaster relief assistance in Taiwan and abroad.
Yang followed that advice and since then has used his gift to help people who get into trouble when hiking or mountain climbing.
Yang eventually became director of the ninth dispatch radio center for eastern Taiwan, making him the organization’s only official with a physical disability in eastern Taiwan.
“As there is often no reception or poor reception for cellphones operating in some mountainous areas around Taiwan, people who have accidents while hiking or mountain climbing have to make rescue calls over the radio,” Yang said. “Radio reception is often very poor, which proves challenging when we try to identify or locate them.”
“On some occasions, we’ve had to stay in the radio center for two or three days waiting for the injured to issue intermittent rescue calls,” he said. “Only then can we determine their location, what -situation they’re in and send a rescue team to pick them up.”
“Two people lost their way in a mountainous area in Taitung County years ago. I was in the radio center and did not sleep for two days because if I missed any calls from them or my colleagues, the [two individuals] could very well have perished.”
Ironically, just as the rescue team was about to give up searching for the pair, they eventually found their way back unassisted — and unharmed, he said.
Although he has considered retirement, he will commit himself to rescue work for the rest of his life, Yang said.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS