← Real Survival Stories
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- [00:00]
John All
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- [01:00]
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- [02:03]
Narrator
It's May 22, 2014, in a remote corner of the Himalayas, close to the border of Nepal and Tibet, a jagged mountain chain serrates the cobalt sky. It's a bright, cloudless day, and the sun's glare of the snow is blinding. Around 20,000ft up on a wide, windswept plateau, a tent has been erected on the frozen ground. Inside, an unzipped sleeping bag, a head torch, a coffee percolator balanced atop a camping stove Unused. Clearly, whoever was just here didn't plan on being gone for long. Outside the entrance of the tent, a set of footprints leads off at a slight angle, weaving through the deep, soft powder. The tracks are fresh, not yet covered over by new deposits. They stretch on for a short distance until abruptly they stop, vanishing into a tiny dark hole in the snow. A pinprick of black in the endless white. It's the opening to a deep, hidden crevasse where 70ft beneath the surface, down in the bowels of the glacier, 44 year old John all lies in a crumpled heap.
- [03:31]
John All
I'm just laying there on my side and I'm on top of the arm that I just ripped out. And then I feel the agony. But then it's also like, whoa, wait, I'm alive.
- [03:45]
Narrator
John blinks, his vision adjusting to the bluish blackness. Blood gushes from his nose and spills through the cracks in his clenched teeth. His right arm hangs by his side, twisted into an unnatural position. Far above him, a dim shaft of light leaks through a hole in the snow. Gingerly, trying not to put any weight on his right arm, John pushes himself upright. Every breath sends volleys of pain ripping through his chest. He looks around, dazed. The last few seconds are a blur, a rush of vertigo, a sudden pulverizing impact with the crevasse floor. But as he comes to his senses, John notices that his legs are dangling off the edge of something. He isn't at the bottom of the crevasse at all.
- [04:45]
John All
I could see maybe 100 meters one direction and probably 50 meters the other direction. And there was just a couple of blocks of ice trapped in different spots in the crevasse. And I had landed on one of them.
- [05:00]
Narrator
John has landed on a frozen slab wedged between the crevasse's vertical walls. Below him, the chasm continues stretching on endlessly into black nothingness. Balanced on this precarious platform, delicately poised above a bottomless abyss, John turns his gaze in the only direction that now matters. Up. His only option of escape, it seems, is an impossible one.
- [05:30]
John All
There was just no way to climb it, especially with just one arm, because this arm was totally useless. But I can't use this half of my body. I'm just looking up, going, how in the hell am I gonna get up?
- [05:52]
Narrator
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 Professor Mountaineer and environmental scientist John all in the spring of 2014, the 44 year old is leading a research trip in a remote corner of the Himalayas. And on the morning of May 22, John experiences firsthand the dangers of doing scientific research on the roof of the world. While crossing a harmless looking snowfield, he stumbles into the mouth of a concealed crevasse, plummeting into the chasm.
- [06:42]
John All
And so it's one of those things where it's just like vertical, I'm falling, this is how I die, you know.
- [06:49]
Narrator
After tumbling 70ft, John comes to land on a hard icy ledge. But surviving the fall might only have bought him time. Turning what would have been a quick death into a slow one. He's trapped, critically injured deep beneath the surface of the glacier with no means of calling for help. His only hope is an audacious, elaborate and incredibly dangerous self rescue.
- [07:15]
John All
100 meter fall if I fall. So I'm having to like free solo from block to block knowing that one fall is death.
- [07:24]
Narrator
I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is Real Survival Stories. It's April 2014. Everest Base Camp. In the shadow of the world's tallest mountain, A group of people sit around a campfire, heads bowed in meditation. This is a puja, a Buddhist ritual for blessing the dead. While solemn mantras echo around the valley, ink black smoke rises and dissipates in the thin clear air. Brightly colored prayer flags strung between tent poles flutter in the frigid wind. Among the mourners is 44 year old John Orr, a blonde haired, blue eyed college professor and climate scientist. John is here on official business. He's leading a team of researchers collecting snow samples from Everest's sister mountain, Lotse. The hope is that the samples will contain clues about how climate change is affecting ice in the region. But yesterday, tragedy struck on Everest and work was pushed to the back of everyone's minds. A massive slab of ice broke off the side of the glacier, crashing down on the heads of an unsuspecting group of Sherpas. John was one of the first on the scene to help search through the debris.
- [09:11]
John All
We spent that whole day digging bodies out and helicoptering bodies down and trying to figure out who's alive and dead because you didn't even know some people had gone above. And so it was like, did they make it through? Were they trapped there?
- [09:27]
Narrator
By the time all the victims were accounted for, the death toll had reached 16, making this the deadliest accident on Everest to date. Among those tragically lost were several of the sherpa guides who John had hired to assist with his own expedition.
- [09:44]
John All
And so it really was this kind of intense time period where it was just me and my friends mourning. So we spent essentially hours of the day doing nothing but meditating, undoing poojas, trying to bless the dead as much as we could.
- [10:05]
Narrator
One death has hit John particularly hard. Asman was a young Sherpa he'd hired in the weeks before the trip. It was to be his first ever expedition as a guide.
- [10:17]
John All
Essentially, if you can get on and become a guide as a Sherpa, that's like, you know, playing in the NBA or something. It's going to make the money for your family to survive and everything. And so we were giving him that shot, you know.
- [10:33]
Narrator
In the wake of such a tragedy, everything else can pale into insignificance. As the days go by, however, John and his colleagues thoughts gradually return to the reason they're here. The expedition. The research. Carrying on as before clearly isn't going to be possible. Following the deadly icefall, no climbers are allowed to ascend Everest or its surrounding peaks. John and his team wait patiently at base camp. But after almost a month with no change, it becomes clear that ordinary service isn't going to resume. Still, despite this setback, neither John nor his colleagues are ready to go home. Perhaps even more so than before. They feel they have a duty to complete the research that brought them here.
- [11:25]
John All
What I felt at least was Ashman sacrificed for this greater good. And for us just to walk away would tarnish the sacrifice he made.
- [11:37]
Narrator
If anything, the tragedy on Everest only highlights the importance of John's research. As the planet gets warmer, these mountains become more volatile with a greater likelihood of avalanches, rockfalls and collapsing glaciers. And so, unwilling to call it quits, John and his team start scouting out different locations to gather samples. But time is not on their side. It's already mid May. They have just a few weeks to pick a location, get there, acclimatize and collect samples. All before the arrival of warmer weather in June makes their high altitude work far too dangerous. After some discussion, they settle on Mount Himlun near the Annapurna range. After obtaining climbing permits, the team embarks from the capital Kathmandu to the base of Himlen, Keenly aware that every day that passes brings them closer to that all important cutoff.
- [12:33]
John All
The end of the climbing season on Everest and in the Himalayas is when the monsoon hits. And so we knew we were looking at late May, early June is when the monsoon hits. And so we were getting closer and closer to that because we'd had to move and come down from Everest, haul all our gear over to Annapurna and go back up. So we know we've got like a week and a half left.
- [12:57]
Narrator
It's a trip not without risk, but balanced against that is potential reward. The opportunity to gather data and push science forward. This search for knowledge is one of John's main motivators that keeps bringing him back to the mountains. Growing up as a keen climber, he learned about the early mountaineers who scaled Everest for no better reason than because it was there. But such naked ambition has never sat well with him.
- [13:28]
John All
At the end of the day, climbing is a selfish pursuit. I mean, it's risking your family's happiness, it's risking your friends happiness. If you die, you're dead. But everyone that you've touched is hurt and you're leaving that void. And for me personally, it just needed to mean more.
- [13:48]
Narrator
It wasn't until he was older that he discovered how to make climbing more meaningful. After finishing his bachelor's degree in environmental science, John began applying for PhD programs. But before resuming his studies, he decided to take a year out. And it was during this period, traveling through South America and climbing peaks as he went that he came to an important realization. His two great passions in life, climbing and environmental science, could exist side by side. The mountains could teach him more about our changing world.
- [14:24]
John All
The Andes are great because maybe 100 meters of horizontal distance gets you 5,000 meters of vertical distance. And so I could see how as people moved up and down the mountains and managed the land in different ways, that it led to really different environmental outcomes.
- [14:42]
Narrator
Years later, John co founded the CLIMA Science Program, a non profit organization that facilitates research in remote mountainous environments. John is currently professor at Western Kentucky University. But during the summers he guides researchers through some of the world's most extreme places. From the driest deserts to the highest peaks.
- [15:04]
John All
We'd measure vegetation, we'd measure water quality, we'd measure grazing impacts, fire impacts, and publish papers on all these different things. But then the, the heart was always the snow. You know, how was the snow changing?
- [15:20]
Narrator
The purpose of this trip to the Himalayas is to measure the speed at which glacial ice is melting.
- [15:26]
John All
One of my colleagues actually was working with NASA and so NASA was going to fly a satellite directly overhead. So while we were collecting snow samples on the ground, they would measure the reflectance up. And of course the reflectance, the more that reflects, the less it's absorbed and the less the glacier melts. So it really lets us directly measure how fast glaciers are disappearing. So it was this wonderful scientific expedition we had all planned out.
- [15:52]
Narrator
Now, after the tragedy on Everest and the delays that followed, that expedition is back on track, albeit behind schedule. John and his lean team of two researchers plus a few local porters and cooks make their way up the lower slopes of the the Himlung Massif. But ominous reminders of the advancing season are never far away.
- [16:16]
John All
We start heading up and there's a snowfall of about half a meter. We're all kind of nervous about it.
- [16:24]
Narrator
As the snow continues to cascade down, the group forges on. They ascend fast, quickly reaching the 6,000 meter or 20,000ft, situated on a snow field above the upper glacier. They've made excellent progress. But as they set up their tents, the consequence of their haste becomes clear. One of the researchers is suffering from altitude sickness due to not acclimatizing properly. She's in a bad way. And it leaves John, as expedition lead with a tough decision.
- [16:58]
John All
And so we were sort of stuck with the this. What the heck are we going to do? So me and the other guy who was feeling good, we kind of walk our perimeter, make sure there's kind of a nice safe area in the camp. I agree to stay up high at 6,000 meters and collect the samples that we're collecting and they'll go down for a day, eat a bunch of food, kind of recover a little bit and then come back up.
- [17:23]
Narrator
John watches as his two fellow researchers, accompanied by the Nepalese guides, make their way back down to base camp. For the first time in weeks, he's alone. He crawls into his tent and hunkers down in his sleeping bag. After a long day's climbing, sleep quickly overtakes him. The next morning, John rises at around 8:30. He sits up yawning, his breath misting the air. Inside the tent, sparkling frost clings to the inner canvas. He unzips the door flap to reveal a magnificent vista sprawled out beneath him. The mountains framed against an impossibly blue sky. Aside from the wisps of spindrift blowing from the peaks across the valley, nothing stirs. The panorama is as still and silent as a photograph. John stretches and smiles.
- [18:36]
John All
I've got the whole day. I got nothing to do. It's a beautiful day, beautiful views. I can see Annapurna, I can see Everest, I can see all this stuff. So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna go out, go collect some snow to melt for coffee.
- [18:52]
Narrator
John gets dressed, pulling on his climbing trousers, T shirt, gloves and a thin, lightweight shell he doesn't bother with a hat or down jacket. He'll only be outside for a few minutes. He grabs a pair of ice axes to dig up snow. Then he trudges away from the tent, crampons crunching. The air is thin and lungs scorchingly cold. John shields his eyes, blinded by the sun's dazzling reflection of the glacier as he walks. His steps are confident, self assured, the strides of a man in his element. But there is something he doesn't know. This area appears at first glance like an unbroken field of snow. But it isn't. Beneath the fresh powder lies a crack, a slender, jagged seam carved into the glacier's frigid bulk. And he is headed straight for it.
- [19:54]
John All
There was just this one little hidden crevasse and it was hidden because of that meter of snow that was on top. So it was kind of like a tiger trap. There was no way to know it was there type deal. And so yeah, I'm just walking along and suddenly I'm followed.
- [20:23]
Narrator
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- [21:22]
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- [22:44]
Narrator
It's the morning of May 22, 2014, in the Himalayas on the slopes of Mount Himlung. 44 year old John all has just inadvertently stepped into a concealed crevasse. The ground opens up beneath his feet and swallows him in a single swift gulp. One moment he's there, the next he's gone, vanished in a blur of flailing arms and a scattering of ice shards below the surface. John plummets through the dark, stunned by the disorienting whiplash of sensation. A moment ago he was on solid ground, bathed in glorious sunshine. Now he's falling through black space.
- [23:30]
John All
I mean, it's bright sunlight to the point that it's hurting my eyes to effectively. Darkness. You feel the vertigo. And we're human beings, we know what vertigo means. And so it's one of those things where it's just like, I'm falling. This is how I die, you know?
- [23:50]
Narrator
John bumps, scrapes and crashes his way down the crevasse, his knees and elbows clattering against the walls.
- [23:58]
John All
I start bouncing off the one side and my reaction, like I'd always thought, well, if I fall on a crevasse, kind of like you see in a movie, you know, you're gonna like, catch yourself.
- [24:11]
Narrator
He's still gripping both his ice axes. He throws out a desperate right hand, slamming the blade into the wall. The axe pierces the ice, but it doesn't stop his descent. Instead, the sudden jolt of resistance snaps his arm and yanks the bone from its socket. And then. John lies in a tangled heap, stunned, the breath smashed from his lungs. Little specks of light dance across his vision. Slowly, his senses flicker back to life.
- [24:55]
John All
I'm just laying there on my side. I'm on top of the arm that I just ripped out, and my legs are dangling over the edge and then I feel the agony. But then it's also like, whoa, wait, I'm alive.
- [25:10]
Narrator
It feels improbable, miraculous even. It also feels like something heavy is pressing down on his diaphragm. John strains, using all his strength to force a trickle of air into his lungs. Once he's breathing more normally, he attempts to sit up and get his bearings. He is landed on a block of ice suspended between the walls of the chasm. Peering over the edge, it seems the crevasse continues down for 300ft more at least. If this ice block hadn't broken his fall, he would be dead, no question. Swallowed without a trace. Gasping in pain, he tips his head back and peers up towards the surface. The walls of the crevasse don't rise in a straight line. They undulate with kinks and crags and overhangs. But at the very top, 70ft above his head, a faint beam of sunlight trickles through the hole he fell through, roughly the height of a seven story building. John stares for a while and as the facts of his situation become clear, disbelief turns to dismay. He isn't carrying his satellite phone or any other means of calling for help. He can't just sit and wait because the others won't get here until tomorrow afternoon and there's no way he'd survive the night, not down here.
- [26:39]
John All
And I could just feel the cold penetrating because all I had on was just a thin liner glove and a T shirt and then just a shell, because again, it was bright sunlight. I was only going to be out of the tent for, you know, 20 minutes and so it was like I was in a deep freezer. I mean, it was cold. Cold.
- [27:02]
Narrator
It's pretty obvious John's only hope of surviving is by climbing out himself. An almost inconceivable prospect. He looks around for his ice axes. He let go of them during the fall and without them he'll have no chance of scaling the crevasse. He feels around in the gloom. No sign. A pang of dread shudders through him. The tools could easily have bounced off the ledge and gone tumbling down into the abyss. His hands scrabble about, desperate, until relief. John closes his grip around the handle of one axe, then another, both lying beside him in the darkness. It's a big stroke of luck, but as he turns to the 70 foot edifice looming over him, he sees that the wall is covered in a thick layer of slushy snow.
- [27:59]
John All
And so I reached up and sort of put my ax in and it just slides down without any resistance at all. And what I realized had happened was as moist air came over before the snowfall hit, came over and went down the crevasse. It quick froze, it pulled the water out, I guess is the way to put it. And so it created this, like whipped cream is the consistency it had. And so there was just. There was no way to climb it.
- [28:37]
Narrator
It's about 9am with the crevasse wall above, John manifestly unclimbable, he's flummoxed. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out something he always brings with him on research expeditions his video camera. He turns the lens on himself and starts narrating the fall. His broken arm, the apparent impossibility of escape. Partly, John does this out of habit. When he's out in the field, he records his observations and ideas for reference later. On this occasion, he can't be certain if there'll be a later. But one thing's for sure, he has never needed a good idea more than now. He speaks slowly into the lens, his breath fogging the glass as he describes the layout of the chasm.
- [29:30]
John All
To my left. The Chrovas just gets wider and wider and wider. There's not much I can do with that.
- [29:38]
Narrator
He swivels the camera around in the other direction. And there, a glimmer of hope. Several hundred feet to his right, the chasm narrows, its walls tapering until they almost touch. If he could get there, he might be able to wedge himself between both sides and shimmy his way to the surface. Crucially, the wall along this horizontal stretch isn't completely smooth. Loose chunks of ice and broken boulders are wedged in the crevasse, intermittently filling the hollow space. With any luck, John could use them as makeshift stepping stones, moving from block to block and climb his way out that way. It's a plan. Whether or not it's a good one, only time will tell. He switches off the camera and stows it away in his pocket. Gritting his teeth, he tries to move his right arm. That's a non starter. He is going to have to maneuver along the wall without the use of his right hand. He'll have to devise a makeshift solution.
- [30:50]
John All
So, unfortunately, I was moving to my right and my right arm wasn't working. So what I had to do was I would take one ice axe and reach over as far across my body as I could, sink it into the wall and then pull myself over until I was kind of leaning up against it, and then I would reach back and grab the other ice axe.
- [31:13]
Narrator
It's going to be slow and Perilous, John will have to dig the points of his crampons into the ice and reach across his body. With his good left arm he'll plant one axe, then lean against it as he reaches back for the other, repeating this difficult move over and over. Readying himself, John sets off, stepping cautiously from his narrow perch, driving metal spikes into the glassy crevasse wall. One armed, he inches his way along the slippery face. It takes him over half an hour to reach the first block of ice. He collapses onto it, his body screaming, his lungs burning. After a brief rest, John looks for the next solid platform. His heart sinks. It's separated from him by a 50 foot gulf, more than double what he's just traversed. With nothing to cling to but sheer featureless ice, he rallies his courage and continues on. Pretty soon he's established a kind of labored rhythm. Strike, heave, swing, kick, on and on. He's about halfway across the gap when he pauses to catch his breath. His muscles are on fire, every tendon stretched to breaking point. Teetering on the points of his crampons, John glances down. Between his quivering legs, a few ice chips come loose and swirl down into the darkness.
- [32:54]
John All
There's nothing below me, so it's a hundred meter fall down into the very bowels of the glacier and I'm just, you know, I'm on my front points, so I'm on two pieces of metal on my feet and one hand and that's all that's holding me up from a hundred meter fall.
- [33:14]
Narrator
He stares into the abyss. Glaciers are active, moving objects, not just static blocks of ice. They advance and recede, split open into crevasses and slam shut again. From the blackness, John can almost hear the ice groaning and shifting, the wind shivering through its dark channels.
- [33:38]
John All
I'm looking down and it sort of is undulating. I can see how the water had flowed down and I could just visualize my body flowing down it. I started just kind of getting nervous or whatever and then I had this vision of my mom and I was like, you know, if I fall in here, they're never going to find my body. Nobody's going to be able to figure out what happened to me, where I went. And I just couldn't do that to her. And so it was kind of amazing. It just slammed the motion shut and just reinvigorated me.
- [34:11]
Narrator
John pulls his eyes away. He summons the strength and redirects his focus into his hand movements, his feet. Positioning on, he goes sidestepping along the vertiginous ice. One foot over the other, until eventually he reaches the second platform. Panting, John pulls out his camera. Time for an update. He looks down the lens and describes his journey so far, his words coming in short, breathless gasps. He points the camera left to show the distance he's come, and then up and right to show the distance still left to climb.
- [34:53]
John All
The video was nice because it was me talking myself through what I was doing, you know, So I was like, all right, well, I can't go that way. I still can't go up yet. This way I can see. So I was thinking it through it every time I would stop.
- [35:09]
Narrator
But he can't stop for long. It's not just the cold. At this altitude, the air he's breathing contains dangerously low levels of unique oxygen, roughly 45% of that found at sea level. Pilots generally turn on supplemental oxygen. At around 10,000ft, John is twice that high. It makes everything he's doing that much harder.
- [35:36]
John All
I was like I was running a marathon at a full sprint. I'm breathing as hard as I could breathe the entire time. And essentially every time I would reach a platform, I would just stop and spend like five minutes catching my breath.
- [35:49]
Narrator
After further enormous effort, John makes it 3/4 of the way along the horizontal stretch, almost at the point where he can start climbing straight up. Pain riots down his right side. But by pouring all of his concentration into what he's doing, he manages to suppress all other distractions.
- [36:09]
John All
It was a computer. It was. This axe goes into that spot. This axe goes into that spot. That foot goes there. That foot goes there. There was no emotion. I mean, there was just no way your mind could take the overwhelming impossibility of what I was doing. Unless you just were a computer.
- [36:37]
Narrator
This Friday. I love him.
- [36:38]
John All
Whatever our souls are made of, his.
- [36:40]
Narrator
And mine are the same experience. The greatest love story of all time. Why did you leave me?
- [36:47]
John All
Why did you betray your own heart?
- [36:48]
Narrator
A film by Emerald Fennell He's Cliff Margot Robbie Jacob Elordi Kiss Me. Let us both be damned. Wuthering Heights Original songs by Charlie XCX Only in theater Friday experience at an IMAX. Rated R. Under 17. Not admitted without parent. We heard you. 9 years of bring Back the Snack Wrap and you've won. But maybe you should have asked for more. Say hello to the Hot honey Snack wrap. Now you've really won. Go to McDonald's and get it while you can. It's about 2pm, almost five hours since John fell. Finally, with acid coursing through his muscles, he has reached the place where the crevasse narrows its walls close enough that he can balance his back against one while digging his crampons into the other. He hacks at the pale blue ice, chiseling off glassy sheets. The texture of the walls here is different. Less moisture flows through the narrow opening, resulting in a harder, brittler consistency. It makes it difficult to get a firm purchase.
- [38:06]
John All
So it's super slow and time consuming. But on the positive side, there was actually little ledges and so I could. I could sort of stem between it and I'm slowly starting to just climb my way through that broken stemmy ice.
- [38:21]
Narrator
John looks up. The surface can't be more than 40ft away. With his back pressed against the one wall, he kicks his spikes into the opposite wall and chimneys his way up the crevice. As he gets higher, the light changes around him, going from a bluish black to a kind of deep aquamarine. He's getting closer, lost in his rhythm. John reaches up with his left hand and hammers his axe into the ice. He hears a crack and feels a sudden lurch as a huge chunk of glacier breaks off the wall. It smashes into him, knocking one leg from its foothold. John braces himself.
- [39:11]
John All
Thankfully, the other leg was anchored and I was pushed up against the wall, so it effectively just pushed me into the wall and bounced off and fell down. Otherwise, if I'd been lower, it would have knocked me off and I'd have died.
- [39:23]
Narrator
He shakes it off. Can't lose concentration now. On he goes, an automaton kick, shimmy, kick, shimmy. Every inch bringing him closer to daylight. He can see the blue sky through the opening now, can practically feel the sun warming his frozen skin, guiding him towards the light. His broken bones grind together as he scrambles higher and higher. And then finally, breakthrough.
- [40:02]
John All
So I get then to the top of the actual crevasse and there's this hole and it felt like digging myself out of my grave because I had to reach up then and clear all that snow out so that there was a hole big enough for me to crawl through.
- [40:17]
Narrator
He anchors his crampons and thrusts himself up through the hole. His head and arms are out. All he has to do now is plant his axe and pull the rest of his body from the crevasse. But at the final hurdle, John finds that he has nothing left to give.
- [40:38]
John All
And I'm just, like, shaking. I'm so tired and I'm screwed because it's loose, thick snow. I am, like, raking through it. I couldn't get out. I sit there for a minute or two, I'm like, holy crap, I get all the way here and I'm going to fall back down.
- [40:58]
Narrator
John's muscles quiver, every fiber on the verge of collapse. It's impossible to get any traction in this loose, powdery snow. It's like trying to hammer a nail into quicksand. And any second his crampons could lose their purchase on the ice.
- [41:15]
John All
I'm just gonna have to jump for it. And so I just push off as hard as I can with my right leg and like, kind of dive forward with my axe and try and like, sink it as deep as I can.
- [41:30]
Narrator
With the last drop of energy he can muster, he propels himself forward. He leaps from the jaws of the crevasse and flings out his left arm, bringing the axe down hard into the snow and hoping, praying that it bites. And it does. Jon Krauls as as far far as he can, eager to put more distance between himself and the gaping black hole behind him. Finally, unable to go another inch, he claps his face down in the snow.
- [42:02]
John All
And I try and stand up and I stand up for like a split second and immediately collapse. I've reached the point where I've just. I've spent everything that's in my body.
- [42:16]
Narrator
Trembling, John lifts his head. His tent is agonizingly close, just a few dozen feet. But even the short crawl over to it might be more than his exhausted body can handle.
- [42:32]
John All
I thought I completed this and could move on to being rescued and heading home for some food. But instead, I've still got a long way to go.
- [42:50]
Narrator
It's almost 6pm as daylight fades over the Himalayas. The ice cliffs and ridges of the Himlung Massif fall into shadow on a remote plateau perched high above the glacier. John drags himself through the snow, his long blond hair matted with frozen blood. After staggering, stumbling and crawling the short distance from the mouth of the crevasse, he finally reaches his tent. He unzips the door and crawls inside. He's made it. He's intensely thirsty, but even though he can see the water sloshing around inside his bottle, he can't get the L lid off with one functioning hand. It is just another torture he must endure. John reaches for his painkillers and swallows them dry. Next, he opens his backpack and pulls out his only communication tool, a small handheld inreach device. It can't place calls, but it can send and receive texts via satellite. It can also access social media, and this might be the most efficient way of raising the alarm.
- [44:07]
John All
And so I just posted it on Facebook. I'm like, hey, this is John following a crevasse. Anybody sees this, we could really helpful if we could start a rescue type deal.
- [44:22]
Narrator
John taps out his post and sends it off a digital flare into the ether. Within minutes, the inreach screen lights up. His Hail Mary has been seen by a colleague, a fellow academic at the CLIMA science program. The colleague informs John that she is called Global Rescue, an international crisis response company who will soon initiate his extraction. That is, once his team has waded through all the red tape.
- [44:54]
John All
That takes a while to get stuff organized. Now helicopters fly all the time, but back then there was just a few helicopters, so it was going to take time to negotiate with them in terms of the cost for the rescue company. So yeah, I knew I was stuck.
- [45:08]
Narrator
There overnight at least. Help is on its way. John picks up the inreach again and sends off a few more messages to his girlfriend, his mom and some of his close friends and colleagues telling them how much they mean to him. Soon the device vibrates with a flurry of replies, messages of encouragement and affection. He draws strength from their words. But even now, surrounded by the support of his loved ones, he keeps his emotions strictly in check.
- [45:37]
John All
I'm still just very analytical and it makes me feel good that they're talking to me and that they love me. But at the same time I just. If I let myself feel, I'll feel the agony, you know, I'll feel the recognition that my body's totally broken.
- [45:56]
Narrator
As the night draws in, John hunkers down. The painkillers have taken the edge off his injuries, but sleep feels unlikely. Besides, there is still the possibility that if he does drift off, he might not wake up. As he sits there listening to the wind howl outside his tent, it's not just his broken bones that are of concern.
- [46:20]
John All
I knew I was bleeding internally. I could feel my stomach filling with liquid and so I was sitting up on the packs at an angle with my feet kind of hanging down into the little vestibule area with just a sleeping bag laying over the top. Thankfully it was warm. Otherwise I'd probably frozen to death. Longest night of my life. Unquestionably. Ready to relax in your dream bath retreat without the stress of figuring out every detail yourself. At the Home Depot, your bath upgrade is covered shop fully designed rooms and curated bath collection collections to go from inspiration to transformation. Fast savings of up to 40% will make it easier on your budget. And find everything you need from tubs to toilets and all the tile in between to bring your Vision to life. The Home Depot Dream Baths built here. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast. Smart move. Being financially savvy. Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
- [47:55]
Narrator
Finally, dawn lightens the edge of his tent. The new day is cause for optimism. By now, the rescue operation will surely have clicked into gear.
- [48:07]
John All
So maybe five in the morning it starts getting light. I'm like, yes, they're gonna be here soon. 6. I'm just in agony. I'm running low on painkillers. 7, 8, 9, 10.
- [48:23]
Narrator
As the morning wears on, John's frustration grows. He sends texts to Global Rescue asking what's taking them so long? But the reply is always the same. We're working on it. The interminable wait goes on until finally, at 11am, he hears it. The guttural thrum of rotor blades beating the air. A few moments later, the door of his tent unzips and the face of a Nepalese man appears. John tries to speak, but his voice is a barely audible croak.
- [49:02]
John All
At this point, I'm close to death. I can't walk, I can't move, but I was kind of laying on a thermarest. And so the Sherpa just grabs both edges of the thermarest and just starts running across towards the helicopter, dragging me. You know, I'm bumping the whole way, breaking all my bones again on the ice.
- [49:20]
Narrator
Within minutes, he's in the helicopter. Once he's fully strapped in place, the pilot sparks the engine and guides the chopper down the mountain. Soon they're below the snow line. Through his fluttering eyelids, John catches glimpses of lush green fields, rice paddies and terraced foothills. As the elevation changes, so does the climate, going from sub freezing to hot and humid.
- [49:49]
John All
And then all of a sudden I'm sweating like a pig because I've got all this heavy stuff, like trying to like strip stuff off and. Yeah, and then we make it down and down to the hospital.
- [50:02]
Narrator
John is taken to a hospital in Kathmandu, and suddenly he's been being stretchered through brightly lit corridors. He is wheeled into the X ray room, where doctors and nurses swarm around him. Some hold him down while others try to force his dislocated shoulder back into place. John Screams until he feels the sharp prick of a needle in his side. As more painkillers are administered, the room blurs, then fades to black as he slips gently from consciousness. Though he has broken 15 bones, including six vertebrae, John only spends a couple of days in hospital in Kathmandu. Desperate to get back to his loved ones, he declines the doctor's advice to have immediate surgery on his right arm. He just wants to go home. And within a week, he is back in Kentucky, surrounded by friends and family, but still relying heavily on painkillers. After surgeons eventually do operate on his broken bones, he is discharged from hospital and sent home to heal at his own pace. But as the physical pain slowly subsides, he finds that it's the emotional aftermath of his ordeal that might have the longer tail. Sadly, as John's recovery grinds on, his relationship with his girlfriend suffers.
- [51:43]
John All
After the accident. You know, I'm totally broken and my body, I could barely move. I'm in agony and everything else. And yeah, she fairly quickly broke up with me and moved on to the next person. And that was probably the hardest emotional part of the entire thing.
- [52:01]
Narrator
For John, life after the accident will never be the same. Though he recovers well from his injuries, the near death experience forces him to reassess.
- [52:13]
John All
It basically was one of those things where before this moment, life had always been this vast ocean of possibility. You know, I could go to Africa, I could go to Nepal, I could go to Central America. And suddenly, way off in the distance, I saw a horizon and realized it wasn't going to go forever.
- [52:39]
Narrator
But the horizon doesn't just remind John of his limitations, it also points him in which direction to go. Following his fall and escape from the crevasse, he decides to uproot his life in Kentucky and live closer to things. He loves climbing and being in the mountains. He lands in Washington State, where he sets up the Mountain Environments Research Institute, an organization that focuses exclusively on high altitude climate research. In the years since, John says other positives have come from his ordeal. For one thing, the publicity his story receives provides him with a platform to promote his field of research and inspire others.
- [53:22]
John All
It just gave me the opportunity to really share my experiences studying climate change around the world. The dangers of doing it, but also the joys and the benefits. And doing it showed people different ways to interact with the environment, different careers, and different ways to care for the environment. I think even if there is some.
- [53:43]
Narrator
Risk involved, ultimately positivity and perseverance define John before and after the accident. And they are the qualities that gave him what he needed to survive.
- [53:56]
John All
It's one of the reasons I climbed out is I'm eternally optimistic. And, you know, it's like, of course I'm going to climb out. How would I not climb out type deal. And I've essentially had to fight for every bit of strength because until high school, I was the skinny, weak nerd. And so when I hit an obstacle like this, it's like all my life I've had to fight to become what I was. And having to fight that whole time really, I think help build the obstinance to keep fighting.
- [54:41]
Narrator
In the next episode, we meet Rob Roth, a journalist who gets trapped right in the middle of an incendiary story. In 1991, the TV reporter is following up on a small wildfire in the forested hills surrounding Oakland, California, a blaze which firefighters got under control the day before. With his wife due to give birth today, Rob is hoping to get home on time. But this routine assignment soon takes a hellish turn. When the winds suddenly change, Rob will find himself trapped in a reignited inferno. Camera still rolling in the middle of one of the worst firestorms in America's history. That's next time. Listen right now, without waiting and without ads. By joining Noizr plus.
- [55:30]
John All
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