High up in the Bavarian alps, tragedy was recently averted thanks to some resourcefulness and a flashy undergarment:

An American woman was airlifted from a German mountainside after sending an SOS signal… with her bra.

The woman – missing for over three days – hooked the brightly coloured sports bra on a cable used for transporting logs to a valley below hoping it would lead rescuers to her.

THE BRASSIERE! Is there anything it can’t do?

“She was saved because she was really clever and in good physical shape,” said police chief Adolph Günther. “Hey, and can you believe my parents actually named me ‘Adolph’? Come on, out of all the possible names to give a German kid… ugh. Whenever I go through customs, people look at me funny. The only place that doesn’t give me any hassle is Argentina.” [Sorry, I just couldn't resist! -E]

Back to the story. It vindicates, beyond a shadow of a doubt, my long-standing policy of only selecting hiking buddies with eye-catchingly prominent magumbos:

The woman had been hiking when the weather turned bad, lost her way, fell 18 feet down a crevasse and injured a shoulder, ankle and her skull.

She blundered on to the crag where she hung out her underwear and waited with a small flask of water and some biscuits. Authorities said she will make a full recovery.

A fine job. Richard Dean Anderson would’ve never hit-upon that solution.

Hmm. Come to think of it, I don’t think he touched a lady’s undergarment in any episode.

I’m not saying he didn’t use one to make a jury-rigged escape device. I’m saying he didn’t touch one EVER.

Read more: Funny or Weird, General News, Multimedia.