Megan Hine Biography PDF

STAGE 5 Unit focus: Adventure and Survival Text focus: Biography Megan Hine Most people have heard of Bear Grylls: he’s one of the most popular celebrity survival experts on...

STAGE 5 Unit focus: Adventure and Survival Text focus: Biography Megan Hine Most people have heard of Bear Grylls: he’s one of the most popular celebrity survival experts on television and one of the public faces of the Scouts in the UK. He definitely knows his stuff when it comes to surviving in desperate circumstances, but there is another person who perhaps knows even more and is often the one helping to keep Bear safe. Her name is Megan Hine. Megan was born in the UK in 1984. She says that, although she did reasonably well at school, she much preferred being outdoors where she felt like she could express herself better. She has said that she found pushing and exploring the limits of nature highly addictive and knew early on that she wanted to work in that environment. After she finished her A-levels, she went to work in New Zealand at an outdoor pursuit centre. She trained as a raft guide and climbing leader and has said that this was the start of her career. In the beginning, Megan was the only woman climbing with a group of men. When she read a book by climber Lynn Hill, Hine realised that there was a whole group of other women out there climbing at an elite level. This spurred her on and encouraged her to pursue a career surviving outdoors. Nowadays, Megan spends 10 to 11 months of the year away from home. She scouts locations for people like Bear Grylls and advises him on how to stay safe in the environments that he finds himself in. She works closely with local people to make sure that she can keep her clients as safe as possible: she is also often responsible for the safety of the whole crew, not just the star of the show. Megan also runs trips for wealthy people who want to explore and survive in remote parts of the world, but need privacy because of who they are. Not everything goes smoothly all of the time. In an interview with National Geographic magazine, Megan once said that travelling all across the world into remote areas means that she often has to adapt to very different cultures. Not all of them are welcoming of a woman in what has traditionally been a male-dominated role. On top of that, she has been shot at, hunted by lions all resources ©2021 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com and bitten by snakes. However, she says that the most scared she has even been was when she contracted Lyme disease in her early twenties. She had been bitten by a tick and didn’t receive immediate treatment to protect her. On a climb in the Alps mountains, she said that she began to suffer terrible migraines and often found herself crying in pain. Luckily, her doctor recognised the disease and managed to treat her. The hardest part of recovery, she says, was taking a long break from training and exploring. When it comes to being stalked by lions, Megan has a harrowing tale. She said that she once woke up in the middle of the Namibian desert while protecting a contestant on a TV show, and saw that they were being surrounded by three lions. It was only because they had a supply of firewood to hand and were able to light a big fire that they kept the lions away and survived. RETRIEVAL FOCUS 1. Who does the author compare Megan Hine to in the first paragraph? 2. Where did Megan prefer to be as a child? 3. Give one way that things have sometimes gone wrong for Megan. 4. Whose book changed Megan’s views on climbing? 5. Who does Megan rely on to help her get the best information of an area? VIPERS QUESTIONS I What evidence is there that training and exploring is an important part of Megan’s life? V Find and copy a word that tells you most people like Bear Grylls. S What did Megan do after completing her A-levels? S When did Megan first start to suffer migraines? I Why might a famous actor hire Megan? all resources ©2021 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com