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- [00:01]
A
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- [00:57]
B
It is late morning, April 30, 1998, about 40 minutes southwest of Denver, Colorado. A short hop off the I25 lies the Roxburgh State Park. In this 3,000 acre national landmark, the clear spring sun rests lightly upon forests of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir mixed together with great swathes of prairie land and show stopping stripes of orange sandstone. These giant, distinctive rock formations jut into the skyline. It's hot for April, 27 degrees, though small snow drifts still litter the hillsides. In this place of extremes, where the summer sun scorches into the high 30s and in winter nighttime temperatures regularly dip below minus 20. Today there is little wind and not a cloud in the sky. Halfway up the park's highest point, Carpenter Peak, the air is dominated by birdsong. The descending trill of canyon wrens and the rhythmic chirping of white throated swifts make the trees and bushes pulsate with a constant lively thrum. High above, golden eagles wheel and cry. There isn't a person in sight. Here in this vast and protected wilderness, the world seems at peace. And then, suddenly. Silence. The birdsong falters as if in anticipation, an eerie warning of the strange and terrible thing making its way down the mountain. Quiet at first, but getting louder. Snarling, screaming violence hurtles down the trail. As it barrels into view, it's hard to make out exactly what this awful creature might be. Half human, half beast, covered in fur and dripping blood, this tornado of teeth and claws careers down the rocky slope. Saplings snap in two with the force of impact as the creature tumbles through the brush. Eventually, the caterwauling creature slams into a thicket Large enough to halt its progress. And for the first time, it's possible to make out two figures locked in a deadly embrace. One of them is 24 year old Andy Peterson.
- [03:18]
C
You could feel the claws come out. You could hear the popping sounds. Pop, pop, pop on each side of my neck. They were inside my neck, pulling me down.
- [03:27]
B
Andy is fighting for his life. Minutes ago, this avid hiker was enjoying the downhill return of his favorite trail. Now he is in a death grip. His flesh punctured and lacerated. Blood cascading down over his eyes, blinding him. And his world is darkening.
- [03:46]
C
The bottom jaw was on the top of my forehead. The top of the jaw was on the back part of my head. And I realized, oh my gosh, it's got me. It's got me. That was it. I'm not gonna get out of this thing.
- [04:10]
B
Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives. In this episode we meet 24 year old park ranger Andy Peterson. On April 30, 1998, Andy wakes up late. He decides to put off his list of chores and instead head to his favorite national park for an invigorating hike. It's a decision that will change his life forever. On his way back down the trail, having enjoyed panoramic views of Carpenter's Peak, Andy is stalked and then attacked by an apex predator that seems intent on ending his life.
- [04:59]
C
I was on my knees looking right into this mouth. You could see the four dogs dominant teeth. It just smell like rotting flesh.
- [05:07]
B
The putrid remains of this beast's recent kill serve as a horrifying preview of what Andy now seems to be becoming its next meal.
- [05:15]
C
I got the claws in my neck and it's pulling me down like this vice grip, just grinding, grinding, grinding. I can't move my arms, I can't move my legs. I got a waterfall of blood in front of me. All I know is I gotta get out of here.
- [05:32]
B
I'm John Hopkins from the Noise of Podcast Network. This is Real Survival Stories. It's April 30, 1998, in an untidy bedroom on the outskirts of Denver, Colorado. Light is streaming through a crack in a badly drawn curtain. A groggy Andy Peterson stretches and yawns, rolls over to check the time and sighs. He's overslept. Not that he is late for anything in particular. It's his day off, but he's got a long list of jobs to do and now he's starting on the back foot.
- [06:33]
C
I woke up late that day on my day off and I said, oh man, I got so much to do. I got errands in town to get done, I got groceries to get, I got laundry to do, just all kinds of stuff. And I went, yeah, who cares? Let's go on the hike.
- [06:48]
B
Recently, Andy has been working as a park ranger in the nearby city of Lakewood. But his heart lies in another park
- [06:54]
C
a little further south in downtown Denver, one of the main state parks is Chatfield State Park. There's hot air balloons, there's horse stables, there's mountain bikes. Everywhere you look there was action going on. Well, 15 miles south of that was a quiet little state park named Roxboro State Park.
- [07:17]
B
In Roxburgh State Park, Andy has found his own slice of paradise. Expansive and simple. It has four main trails, one of which takes the intrepid hiker straight up the highest point, the so called Carpenter Peak Trail.
- [07:32]
C
The one that I loved the most was the almost four mile trail to the very top of the mountains. It was about a thousand foot incline.
- [07:43]
B
The routes can be punishing for the unseasoned walker, but the precipitous nature of the climb has its rewards.
- [07:49]
C
Sitting up on top, you know, you have this breathtaking view of just incredible scenery. And this became kind of my go to hike, my timeout, my get away from everything, get away from the noise, the work, the people, just time out.
- [08:07]
B
Andy rolls out of bed, throws a few essentials into a backpack and jumps in the car. It isn't a long drive and the day is still young by the time he reaches the park. He leaves his car by the visitor's center, steps out and breathes in the refreshing clean air of nature. He stands at the foot of the Carpenter Peak Trail with the glorious spring sunshine warming the surrounding wilderness. Grasslands fan out on all sides with a gentle incline up ahead growing to steeper rocky slopes sprinkled with trees higher above. The stage is set for another of Andy's great escapes, a peaceful sanctuary from the pace of life. As he begins the hike, he checks the whiteboard by the visitor's center where walkers record animal sightings. A black bear has been spotted with her cubs not far along the trail, near this very spot. Apart from that, the board hasn't changed much since the last time Andy came. There are foxes, deer, a few eagles, and in faded marker pen from about a year ago, a mountain lion. And he heads up the trail, he is traveling light with just snacks, a bottle of water and a Leatherman style penknife in his small backpack. He's done this route so many times, any more than that would be overkill. As his boots crunch rhythmically up the dry mud path, Andy seems lost in his own world. He passes another man walking alone, but he barely lifts his head in acknowledgment. Despite the thinness of the path and the tightness of the brush on either side, forcing the hikers to sidle past each other at close quarters, Andy is not interested in connecting. As he continues up the trail, the sun grows warmer and sweat beads on his brow. But he doesn't break stride. A spring breeze provides pleasant respite and before long, the summit is in his sights. As he is about to crest the peak, he passes four women making their way down. And just as with the male hiker he passed earlier, he doesn't even look up.
- [10:22]
C
The only thing I thought of was me, me, me, me, me. I want to get to the top. I want to sit on my favorite spot, my favorite rock. I don't want anybody sitting there. Don't need to speak to anybody, don't want to talk to anybody, just my spot.
- [10:35]
B
When he reaches the top, Andy has Carpenter's Peak all to himself. He looks out over the foothills all the way to Red Rock Amphitheater, the famous music venue, and on to Boulder and Rocky Mountain National Park. He turns his head east to take in the endless plains, while behind him, Pike's Peak and the rest of the Fourteeners. Colorado's sequence of 14,000 foot Rocky Mountains stretches out in all their snow capped majesty. Andy sips his water. This is what he came for. Not community, not connection, just him and the view. Not for the first time, Andy Peterson is putting himself first. Growing up, Andy lived in the tiny farm town of Hutchinson, Minnesota, with a population of 15,000, where everybody knew everybody. But this simple life was complicated at an early age. His parents split up when Andy was in kindergarten and both had remarried by the time he was in fourth grade. Andy went from having one home and one sister to suddenly inheriting five stepbrothers across two homes. He had to quickly learn how to navigate the duality that comes with divorce.
- [12:00]
C
So yeah, in third grade art class, I'm watching all these kids in my class making one craft. Well, that's great, but do I give that one to mom or do I give it to dad? Can I make two? And the teacher's failing you because you're not making it as per as the person next to you. But hey, I'm going twice as fast to try to make two things to give. You know, who do I give it to? So as a kid, one weekend you're at dad's house and there's a set of rules, and the next weekend I'm at my mom's house and there's a whole set of rules.
- [12:35]
B
Without the safety of one single place to call home, Andy began to harden, to detach from his emotions. In his large blended family, there was often friction, and money was regularly tight. By the time Andy reached fifth grade, he was searching for a sense of self and validation outside of the family home. It led to experimentation and rebellion.
- [13:00]
C
My first cigarettes was in fifth grade. I bought them off my brother for a dime a piece. My first marijuana, my first joint was in seventh grade. And my first hallucigen in my first hardcore drug was 11th grade. I really quickly started living on fast lane in parties. I didn't want to go home. As much as I could be away from home, partying with friends, I did that, and so I just found myself searching.
- [13:31]
B
As soon as he finished high school, Andy left town. He drove west into the mountains with a paper map and no idea where he was going. From Minnesota, he traveled west to Montana, camping out in national parks, living off grid with little to no contact with family or friends. Nobody knew where he was or where he was going. Neither really did Andy. For the first time in his life, he was totally alone and totally free. He traveled down through Wyoming and Arizona to the Grand Canyon and Rocky State national park, all the time soaking in the peace and quiet. After partying with a friend in Colorado, Andy was running short on cash. With a car in need of an oil change and a body in need of a hot shower, he headed for home. But after returning to Minnesota, it didn't take long for things to sour. Andy got a job in a lumber mill and resumed the constant battles with his parents. One day on his break at work, he had an epiphany.
- [14:33]
C
And I just sat there and went, I gotta get outta here. There's nothing here for me. I'm fighting with the family. I don't want to do this. And so I said, I'm just gonna head back to Colorado where my buddy is and see what life throws at me, you know?
- [14:48]
B
The trouble was Andy didn't have any money, but he knew someone who did.
- [14:55]
C
I went to my grandma's house and I played the old little sorry grandchild type, hey, grandma, I'm moving to Colorado. I don't have any money. Can I just a little bit of money. And she didn't even hesitate. This sweet lady turns around and she writes a checkout. I have no idea how much for. She writes a check, folds it in half, hands it to me, and I wish I could have paused a little longer to truly thank her just for her love and support. So she gives me, you know, the check, I put it in my wallet, give her a hug, and she's like, come back and visit grandma, you know, And I'm just like, yeah, okay, got what I wanted.
- [15:30]
B
I'm out. It wasn't until Andy stopped at a gas station en route to Colorado and thought to look at the check that he discovered quite how generous his grandma had been.
- [15:41]
C
And I'm sitting there staring at this piece of paper in my hand and at 20 years old with no goals, no nothing lined up, I'm staring at a check for $10,000. I've never seen that much money in my life. And I just got excited. I called my buddy from the pay phone. I said, party's on me. I'm, I'm almost there, you know, let's go party up.
- [16:08]
B
True to his word, Andy and his friend spent his first night in Colorado partying in Denver into the small hours. After a long and heavy night, Andy got into an altercation outside a nightclub. It led to his friend being tackled to the ground. His head was split open on the pavement with a body full of drugs and alcohol and a passenger covered in blood from a freely weeping gash in his head. And he tried to drive to the hospital.
- [16:37]
C
No clue where I'm going. And I just started driving around trying to find the hospital. He's trying to tell me where to go, but he can't really see. And all of a sudden we get onto this road and normally you got sidewalks and a middle line and also in this road gets more narrow and narrow and the sidewalks get taller and taller and the dotted line disappears and it does like this U shape and at the end of this U shape down there, all sudden I see this food truck, box truck looking vehicle and it's coming towards us and I realized there's not a whole lot of room for this guy to get by me. Now we're driving towards each other and we come nose to nose about a couple feet away from a head on collision. And I realize it is I that is going the wrong way on an off ramp. I'm going the wrong way. On the big interstate highway, cars are going 70, 80 miles an hour on this thing, we could have easily had a head on collision with, of all things, an ambulance.
- [17:45]
B
The ambulance into which the two inebriated men almost collided took the friend to hospital. Andy drove home. His next few months continued in much the same vein. He followed the party from Colorado to California and Vegas, only to return to his new home in Denver to find a file of unpaid bills and a letter from his bank bearing two terrifying words. Insufficient funds. In just three months, he had frittered away his grandmother's $10,000 and he got jobs and lost jobs. He was fired from a gig in a shipping warehouse and from another on a construction site. Then he remembered that his parents had always said they'd give him money if he went to university. So he sent his mother lists of books and classes he wanted to attend and she sent checks. Money that suffice to say, Andy didn't spend on studying. But this was just another short term financial fix. Something a little steadier was required. Then he stumbled across a new professional possibility. One that held a greater appeal than anything he'd previously tried. Becoming a park ranger.
- [19:01]
C
I didn't want to sit in front of a computer all day. I'm more active. I want to be outside. Park ranger, camping, boat and fishing, hiking. Oh yeah, that's more my style. Awesome, awesome.
- [19:13]
B
And so Andy reached an equilibrium of sorts. Still partying regularly, but also working at something that he did actually in his own private way, enjoy. And every week, without fail, he would head up to his favorite spot in Roxburgh State park to get some space to be alone and to escape reality for a little while. Right now, sat atop Carpenter's Peak. The reality is that the weather is beginning to turn. The wind is stirring into life and clouds are forming overhead.
- [19:47]
C
Kind of looked around like, all right, I can get out of here, you know, the wind's picking up. Still had 3 1/2 miles to get down, so I turn around and I start walking down this trail.
- [20:00]
B
Andy finishes the orange he brought as a snack, takes a few more gulps of water and he gets on his way. He hasn't gone far back downhill, when suddenly he stops in his tracks. Two vivid purple and white flowers dangle alluringly just off the path. It's a surprise to see them there. The area surrounding the path is arid and trampled. Andy takes a moment considering these intricate and beautiful splashes of color on a backdrop of greens and browns. He takes a deep breath, drinking in the natural splendor. He goes to continue when a faint noise makes him turn
- [20:44]
C
And I look down further on the trail and I hear the snap sounds. And underneath this little pine tree, sure enough, I see this big brown fir sitting under this pine tree where the noise is coming from. And I, I know what a German shepherd dog is. I know what a fox is. I know what a coyote is. And I'm looking at this and I go, this is a mountain lion. This is a mountain lion.
- [21:11]
B
Andy stands stock still. There is nobody else around. There is just him. And a few feet off the trail in the shade of a pine tree, there is a mountain lion, an immensely powerful predator, rarely seen but deeply feared. There is just one thing playing in Andy's favor right now. The beast is distracted by an early lunch. Its powerful jaws tear the flesh and crack and crunch through the bones of a recently mauled mule deer. It looks up briefly scanning the horizon before returning to its meal, careful not to make any sudden movements. And he turns his head to look left down the mountain at the visitor's center. Way below, he can see the parking lot where he left his car. But if he's going to get down there, he is going to have to walk right past the mountain lion. It hasn't looked up at Andy. Not yet anyway.
- [22:14]
C
I know at any moment, this lion, their senses are far better than mine. This mountain lion is just gonna look right at me, and it's game on.
- [22:24]
B
Trembling, Andy tries very slowly and very carefully to remove the penknife from his pack. Without taking his eyes off the mountain lion, he gently unfolds all of the tools from their slot.
- [22:39]
C
I folded out the screwdriver part of the knife and I realized all these knives are just poking all out of this knife set now. And if I fall on this thing, there's two, three knives at the bottom. I'm just going to stab myself in my gut. I start fighting with this line and I fall on this, it's just going to stab myself. So I started pulling all these blades in to make a makeshift type weapon, a just the big blade. And I fold in the screwdriver part in the middle of the blade and it slipped at the end and slammed back into the case of the knife and kind of did this little echo across the mountain.
- [23:16]
B
The pen knife's click reverberates across the slopes. It seems an impossibly loud noise to emanate from such a small object. Andy sharply inhales and just for a second, his eyes dart down, away from the lion and towards the tool in his hand.
- [23:35]
C
Glanced at the knife that made that little clap type Noise as the blade went back in. And I look back at the lion. Gone. Lion's gone. I didn't even see it move. They're so fast. They're like stealth. They're so fast, so quick, so elusive. And I look and I'm like, where'd he go, Where'd he go, where'd he go? And I looked further down this trail and it did a U shape. And at the corner of the tree, sure enough, there's that lion staring right outside the brush, staring right at me.
- [24:06]
B
Andy is looking the lion dead in the eyes. His mouth is hanging open, revealing four predominant teeth, long sharp canines that seem to jut out of its mouth with exaggerated menace. And on its head, the lion has pulled its ears back flat against the skull, which means only one thing. It's getting ready to pounce.
- [24:30]
C
I'm staring at this lion realizing, please somebody come up this mountain because this is getting dangerous real quick. Please somebody come up here because now the fight is on.
- [24:49]
B
It's the 30th of April, 1998, and near the top of the highest peak in Roxburgh State Park, a 24 year old man is locked in a staring competition with one of nature's most effective killing machines. Up to 200 pounds of pure muscle and 8ft from nose to tail, the Colorado mountain lion has a record breaking leap of 20ft straight up or 40ft horizontally. For context, that's like performing a slam dunk in a professional basketball hoop that is stacked on top of another professional basketball hoop. A 40 foot horizontal jump would clear nearly half the court. Also known as cougars or pumas, they have been recorded leaping into trees while carrying 100 pounds of fresh kill in their mouths. And they can reach running speeds of 50 miles per hour. All in all, the stats are not in Andy Peterson's favor.
- [25:45]
C
The fastest guy ever recorded was Usain Bolt in the Olympics, I believe was 28 miles an hour. So you're not getting away from these animals. They love the surprise ambush. They'll go for the head and neck area, they'll grab the neck and head area and they'll sever the spine or break the vertebrae until whatever it has stopped breathing.
- [26:15]
B
High up on the slopes of Carpenter's Peak, Andy is trying to control his own breathing. He has been stood quite still staring at the lion for some minutes now. The creature stares back. In its eyes, there is a kind of terrifying certainty, a calm power that shakes Andy to his core.
- [26:37]
C
When these lions look right at you, they look through you, almost like they open you all up and see every strategy, every fear, everything about you. Like they're a step ahead because they're so elusive, so powerful that you realize really quickly, I'm in trouble. I mean, the fear alone was so heavy, my legs were shaking so bad where it was hard to stand up.
- [27:05]
B
Under his breath, he pleads for someone, another walker, to come up the trail. But no one does. So slowly, very slowly, Andy starts to back up the trail, moving uphill away from the big cat. As the path bends, a scrub oak momentarily obscures the lion from view.
- [27:28]
C
The second it broke the line of sight, in a blink of an eye, that lion jumped, launched and landed right in front of me. I could reach out and pet this thing, it was that close.
- [27:39]
B
Startled, Andy takes a step back down the trail. And the lion uses the opportunity to take the higher ground. Jumping above him on the uphill slope, Andy takes one more step down the trail and the lion pounces.
- [27:54]
C
Boom. It jumped right on me, slammed into my chest.
- [27:58]
B
The lion's razor like retractable claws rake Andy's torso and neck, drawing blood, but somehow he wriggles free. The lion pounces again. But Andy dodges the attack and sets off down the trail as fast as he possibly can. He runs backwards, downhill, swinging his pack out in front of him like a shield and screaming at the top of his lungs. In his other hand, he still grips the penknife. He cannot afford to put a foot wrong on the twists and turns of the trail with its loose rocks and tree roots threatening to trip him with every step. The lion follows at an effortless canter. And then Andy stop.
- [28:42]
C
We came to three boulders, like three foot steps of boulders. And at the top of the steps, I took a swing with the knife in the pack. It lined us kind of backed up like, you know, didn't even get close to it because it was so quick. And I had the knife in my left hand as hard as I could. I took a swing towards its head and again it just kind of backed up like it was almost slow motion, like it went right by its, its face and nose. With the knife
- [29:10]
B
on his precarious perch, teetering on the rocky steps, Andy tries to use his knife to keep the lion at bay. He attempted to get some more distance between himself and the predator.
- [29:22]
C
After I swung the second time, I jumped down that boulder step, that three foot drop, and that was the first time me and that mountain lion looked each other dead in the eyes. Same height, same level. It was three feet up and we looked right at each other and it launched with such force and slammed into my chest with such force, threw me down the mountainside. We snapped two 3 inch diameter trees. I mean they just popped and snapped off like toothpicks of the power of this line. I heard this huge loud thud as the back of the mountain lion slammed into this big bush. The bottom claws of the line were down by my knees and my thighs. The top claws were up on my neck. You could feel the claws come out. You could hear the popping sounds, pop, pop, pop on each side of my neck. And you could tell now that they were inside my neck pulling me down. The bottom jaw was on the top of my forehead. The top of the jaw was on the back part of my head. And I was on my knees looking right into this mountain lion's mouth.
- [30:26]
B
Held in place by huge paws with razor sharp claws dug deep into his flesh. And with his head held in its teeth, Andy starts stabbing wildly at the lion's head and neck with his pen knife. But the knife doesn't have a lock. And in his furious stabbing, the blade has folded back on his hand so that with every swipe he presses the sharpened edge deeper into his own fingers. He can smell the rotting flesh of the beast's previous kill and he can hear its fangs crack on his skull.
- [30:59]
C
All you heard as the teeth raked on top of my head. All of a sudden it was just like this waterfall of red. And I realized I'm losing time. This is real as it gets. I can't turn around and hit reset. I can't turn around and unplug the video game. This is as real a moment as I get in my life. This is the scariest moment of my life.
- [31:26]
B
With time running out, Andy does something he has never done before.
- [31:31]
C
And I didn't know what else to do because nobody else is coming up on this trail. And I scream as loud as I could. God help me.
- [31:39]
B
While appealing to the heavens, Andy continues to fight. With the blades of his pen knife still semi retracted. He needs to reach over to his weapon. Desperate, trapped and in intense pain, he stretches over the lion's head. It continues to attack as his right hand grapples to unfold the penknife. And then he makes a discovery.
- [32:02]
C
I reached over this lion and I undid this knife and I reached back and I felt two soft spots. And as hard as I could, I shoved my thumb into the eye of this lion.
- [32:14]
B
The lion squeals and pressing home his advantage, Andy stabs again. This time he makes good contact with a yelp. The lion loosens its grip and Andy stumbles free, bloodied and shaking, coursing with adrenaline. Looking over at his assailant, he can see that the lion's eye is damaged and it has a gash on the top of its head. Elsewhere, its fur is thick and matted with blood. His blood. Before it can rally and mount another attack that will surely finish him, Andy picks up a rock from the trail and hurls it at the lion. He misses, but he tries again and again.
- [32:53]
C
I saw this basketball sized rock halfway in the dirt and I ripped that out of the dirt and overhead threw it, boom, bam. Slammed it right into the side of the line and shuffled the line down a few more feet.
- [33:07]
B
The animal stumbles as the heavy rock strikes its flank, forcing it a few crucial feet further away. And with that, Andy starts running.
- [33:19]
C
Now go, go, go, go, go, go. So now I'm running for my life. I see the. The blood dripping and splattering on my shoes and the trail as I'm running. I keep looking back, please don't chase me, please don't chase me. And I'm running through in this huge set of pine trees shade the trail. And it does this L shape and I'm running around the corner of this L and I turn and look behind my shoulder and at the corner of the tree. Sure enough, there's this mountain lion staring
- [33:47]
B
right at me again, badly hurt and leaving a telltale trail of blood behind him. Andy is being stalked. He is already dizzy, disorientated, his body a cocktail of adrenaline and injury. He takes a few more steps, but when he turns around again, it isn't the lion he sees, but something very, very different.
- [34:13]
C
I saw this transparent face of a man. I saw this transparent face of Jesus. Because the peace that rushed through me the moment I saw this face. I didn't know who he was. I didn't know what it was. But the peace that rushed through me was so real, was so complete, like, I got you, son, I got you.
- [34:41]
B
With his energy levels renewed by a sense of hope that seems heaven sent, Andy runs again. There is no sense of how close the lion is. His focus is just on his feet, slapping and stumbling on the ground. And then, as if from nowhere, he barrels straight into the arms of a couple of hikers. The sight of Andy's slashed body and face is horrifying. The two walkers sit him down and give him water. But in his adrenalized state of terror is manic. He insists he needs to continue.
- [35:16]
C
So I stood up and I pulled away from them. And I keep running. You know, I'm just screaming, Help, help. Help. 911 Mountain Lion. You know, I'm screaming all this stuff. Running down like. Like a complete fool. Running down, running down this mountain, just screaming like a bloodied idiot.
- [35:32]
B
The trail beneath his feet becomes smoother, flatter. The visitor center isn't far now, maybe half a mile. Andy is still in a terrible way. He may not be able to make it even that far, but thankfully his pleas have now been heard.
- [35:50]
C
Two of those ladies that I couldn't even look at and give a sincere hello earlier up on that trail were driving out of the park and heard me screaming running down this mountain. They turned around in their car and ran back that last half mile from the visitor center to where now I was. And all of a sudden I had one arm up over their shoulders and another arm up over their shoulders. And they were now carrying me the last half mile.
- [36:19]
B
The three of them crash back into the visitor's center. And suddenly, Payne hits Andy like a freight train. He yells out that his feet are on fire. The hikers remove his shoes and tend to his wounds as best they can on the floor of the visitor's center. Not long after, the faint sound of helicopter blades grows louder overhead. Andy had come to the park for some solitude, to get away from everyone else, but it is thanks to the kindness of other people that he now stands a chance of making it through. It's the middle of the night on the 1st of May, 1998, the day after the attack on a ward of the Swedish Medical center in downtown Denver. Someone is screaming. This is a hospital, so such sounds are not unusual. What is different about these screams, however, is that they're not being caused by physical pain. They're being caused by trauma and terror.
- [37:22]
C
I remember the first night right after I woke up from the surgery, dozing off and on, dozing off and on. Every 20 minutes, I would wake up in the bed screaming, because I relived it over and over and over and over all night long. My mind was just on replay of this attack in vivid detail. The claws, the sharpness of the claws, the sound of the teeth on my head. And I went, I can't do this. This is. This is almost worse than the attack itself because it just kept going and going and going and going and it wouldn't stop.
- [38:03]
B
And he has already been through six hours of surgery. He needed over 100 stitches to suture wounds to his neck, chest, thighs, shoulders, arms and stomach. 74 staples were needed to close the 2 foot long gashes in his head. And he has had plastic surgery to mend the gouge under his eye. The team at Swedish Medical has never used so many staples.
- [38:28]
C
The surgeon there for 20 years never used two staple guns. So I guess I set a record.
- [38:36]
B
While Andy lies in hospital recovering from surgery, a search is going on for the big cat that attacked him. But the arid Colorado air means the bloodhounds can't keep the scent. And after three days, they stop looking. It is unknown, therefore, if the lion was carrying any diseases. For Andy, this means he needs further extremely unpleasant treatment.
- [39:01]
C
I had to have the rabies shots, and I remember a nurse, Tim, if I recall his name, came in and he's like, buddy, we can't find it. So the shots, the rabies shot's got to go where the bite marks are. It's going to be on top of your head. This will not be pleasant. I'm going to tell you that right now. This is going to be excruciating. So hold my hand if you need to. And I remember grabbing his hand and 12 rabies shots went in. And he wasn't kidding. It was torture. They had to help undo my fingers because my hand was white. He came in the next day with a little cast on his bottom two fingers. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm sorry. He goes, it's okay, it's okay.
- [39:46]
B
It doesn't take long for the media to get a hold of Andy's story. And soon journalists are turning up to the hospital asking for interviews. But he is in no state to court the limelight. In one interview, he is so unwell from the morphine, he vomits throughout. Surprisingly, Andy's dad comes to the hospital to sit with him. A surprise, because they don't exactly see eye to eye.
- [40:11]
C
This was a guy that I never got along with. It was late at night when he flew in. And he comes to the hospital and he sits in this chair and there's this little light in this hospital room. It's just me and him. And he says, how you doing? I said, okay. He goes, no, how you doing in here, son? I said, I don't know. I don't know, dad. And he says, when life was so heavy 10 years ago, I even struggled with money, with you boys, with work. He goes, life got really hard and really heavy. And he goes, I just threw it all at the foot of the cross. And I said, God, I can't do this anymore.
- [40:54]
B
For the first time in Andy's life, his father Opens up. This big, tough alpha male suddenly seems far more vulnerable. Andy lies in the hospital bed full of staples and stitches and covered in dressings and bandages and listens. Four days after he was admitted, he leaves the hospital, lucky to be alive. He's told that if it wasn't for the dry Colorado air helping to clot his blood, he may have died on the hillside. Despite such a near miss, it doesn't take long for Andy to return to his old habits.
- [41:34]
C
It only took a week for me to fall right back. My old party friends, my old party ways.
- [41:41]
B
Initially, it's hard for him to reintegrate back into normality. His wounds make him self conscious. He wears a bandana over his hair, which he's not allowed to wash for three months because he might uproot it. So he goes home to stay with his parents to rest and regroup. While he's there, Andy attends church with him. But he's going through the motions for their sake. It isn't until he is at a bonfire party, staring bleary eyed into the fire that his perspective shifts.
- [42:16]
C
All of a sudden the fire gets really hot and really deep and it's like nobody could see me. I couldn't make conversation for nothing. It's like people's looking right through me and I just walk up to this fire and it just keeps getting hotter and deeper. And I have never heard as clear in my life as, you need another lion, son. And I realized then that I was at a crossroads in my life at that exact moment that I put both feet on God's path.
- [42:48]
B
In that moment, Andy's expression changes. He takes a deep breath and steadies himself for a fresh start. A year later, a female mountain lion is found and cornered in a garden near Roxburgh. She has a 1 inch scar on the top of her head and she is missing an eye. Andy is asked if he wants the lion to be put down and he says no. She had probably just been defending herself. He asks them to set her free, reasoning that if anything, he should be thanking her. She changed his life. Andy went on to repair his broken relationships with his parents, family and friends and to forge new ones. He met his wife, Courtney, when the Christian ministry she was working for asked her to find inspirational speakers. She came across Andy's story online and gave him a call. They have two children together and have formed a family that it's safe to say would not exist if it wasn't for what happened on that trail in April 1998.
- [43:55]
C
I would go through this attack a thousand times over to get that real relationship with my dad, with my wife, with my kids, with others.
- [44:07]
B
The incident gave him a desire to fix things that were fractured. When Andy was in the grip of the mountain lion and his world started going dark, all he really wanted was little more time to say sorry.
- [44:19]
C
Things that started flashing through my head was that grandma that I took money from, can I say time out. Time out. Can I say I'm sorry to her, my sister, my brothers that I lied and stole from. Time out. I'm sorry guys. My mom that I made cry, my dad that I fought with. Time out.
- [44:43]
B
And Adi makes the most of the extra time given to him as well as starting a family. He publishes a book entitled Saved Twice, telling the story of the attack and the subsequent changes he made to his life. His story has been heard by thousands. He even appears on the Oprah Winfrey show to tell his tale. Today, Andy works as a real estate broker in Tennessee and loves spending time with his wife and grown up children. He doesn't live in Colorado anymore, so his trips to Roxburgh State park are less frequent. But he left something behind to inspire the next Andy Peterson who might find themselves alone on the path one day, facing trouble and in need of a kind word.
- [45:27]
C
And if you go back now, up on that trail on the summit, there's a bench and it's believe in yourself. Never give up. The hardest thing for me has been to keep the real and raw truth to this story so that the readers can hopefully take something from it and better their lives, their families, their relationships, their schools, their works, their communities, even if it's just holding a door for somebody. Went to a grocery store. A sweet lady was trying to get a cart and get groceries in her car. And I said, here, let me take that for you. You know, I'm able, why not slow down a little bit? This is real life's fragile. So yeah, it gave a whole new outlook on life.
- [46:27]
B
Next time on REAL Survival Stories, we meet Marco and desiree Krutoff. In May 2025, the hard working Dutch couple book an extended holiday to Canada. They hope to reconnect with each other and to take some time to decide what the next phase of their lives should look like now that their children have left home. But all plans are thrown out of the window when just days into their holiday, the seaplane they have booked for a sightseeing trip crashes into the icy waters off the coast of British Columbia. Trapped upside down inside the flooded cabin, Desiree and Marco must work together to escape the swiftly sinking wreckage before they run out of air or are overcome by the freezing temperature of the water. And even if they can free themselves, another totally unforeseeable challenge lies ahead. A final sting in the tale awaits. That's next time on REAL Survival Stories. Listen right now, without waiting and without ads, by joining Noiser plus.