← Real Survival Stories
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- [00:01]
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- [00:57]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
It's Friday, February 13, 1998 in Tasmania, an island state of striking natural Beauty located some 150 miles south of the Australian mainland. Jutting out from the southeast coast of the island, the carved fluted cliffs of the Tasman Peninsula plunge down towards the foaming waters of the South Pacific, where chubby seals bask on sea drenched rocks while sleek skinned dolphins frolic in the rolling waves beyond. From the clifftops, the horizon is an unbroken blue expanse of sea and sky. It's like standing on the edge of the world, and there, in a narrow cleft between the craggy cliffs, a tall, impossibly slender monolith rises from the turbulent surf, its base battered continuously by waves on all sides. This brittle rocky spire is known as the Totem pole. Measuring over 200ft in height, or just 13ft in diameter, the fact that it remains standing almost seems to defy logic. Midway up the needle like pillar, a small narrow ledge juts out from the stone, no wider than a single bed, and crouching on top of it, frozen in shock, is a woman in her early 30s, locks of Sandy hair flying around her sculpted cheekbones. Celia Bull scrambles to the edge of the rocky shelf and peers down it, a sickening feeling stealing over her as she stares towards the seething mass of waves surrounding the column.
- [02:39]
Celia Bull
There's like a few moments after the silence and I looked down and when I looked down and saw him, I knew that we had a problem.
- [02:50]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Around 100ft below, the body of a man dangles above the boulder strewn swell, slumped upside down in his climbing harness, his arms and legs flung out as if in supplication to the sky above. This is Celia's boyfriend and fellow climber, Paul. Paul Pritchard. Paul hangs motionless. The water beneath him darkens, ruby spirals seeping outward as blood trickles into the surf. Celia stares with mounting horror at the twisted figure below. They are alone, far from any help and stranded on an inaccessible needle of rock with a human life hanging in the balance. There is only one thing that can be done.
- [03:39]
Celia Bull
There had to be a rescue. And the only way of getting that rescue was if I could get him safe, so I could leave him, so I could go off and get help.
- [03:52]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
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 Celia Bull, climber, sailboat captain and all round adventurer. In 1998, Celia and her boyfriend Paul are climbing a totally unique natural formation, Tasmania's legendary totem pole, when a stroke of bad luck causes a devastating accident. Severely injured and dangling below the high tide line, Paul is suspended, quite literally between life and death. His only hope of survival rests entirely on Celia.
- [04:46]
Celia Bull
I mean, it wasn't pretty, but I knew that the only way he would survive is if I got him to the ledge where he would be safe. And I got off and went and got help.
- [04:58]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
With no other choice, Celia is forced to employ all her physical and mental strength to get Paul to a place of relative safety before it's too late. It is a perilous puzzle with only dangerous solutions. And even if she can accomplish such a superhuman feat, her work will be far from over.
- [05:17]
Celia Bull
I missed the first part of the puzzle. The puzzle was quite intricate, but I was the first part. I was either going to succeed or fail. There was no other brand.
- [05:28]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
I John. I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is Real Survival Stories. It's the morning of Friday 13th February 1998. Despite the superstition and bad luck traditionally associated with this day, there is no hint of trouble. In the rolling skies above Tasmania, where wispy white clouds chase each other across the wide expanse, propelled by frequent gusts of wind. In a forested campsite within the Tasman national park, situated on a rugged peninsula to the southeast of the island, a British couple in their early 30s finish up their breakfast of fruit and oats. They then check their equipment once more to ensure they have everything they need for the climb they've planned. Today. Celia Bull and Paul Pritchard fill their water canteens from one of the outdoor taps and hoist their rucksacks onto their shoulders and set out along a dirt coastal path bordered by dense trees and vegetation. The track offers stunning views of the South Pacific and the couple keep a keen eye out for killer whales and sharks as they negotiate the uneven terrain. The further Celia and Paul get from the campsite, the wilder the landscape becomes. They appear to be the only people on the path today. Neither of them talks much as they pick their way along the winding trail strewn with boulders and tree roots. The specter of the climb that lies ahead hangs heavy in the air between them, causing a strange mixture of tension and excitement. It's something they've been talking about attempting for years, but it's only recently been made possible. A few months ago, Paul won the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature for his first book, Deep Play, detailing his experience of tackling some of the world's most challenging ascents. Using the prize money, he and Celia have embarked on a world tour, ticking off a series of bucket list climbs.
- [07:51]
Celia Bull
There's lots of climbing in Australia that we were both interested in and he introduced me to the Totem Pole. It was like, you know, the thing that he really wanted to climb when we were in Australia, and that was like a few years before we went. So I got involved in the whole story. We had all the old editions of Mountain magazine and stuff like that, so we read up about it, scour photographs. So before we went, it was always one of the things we were going to Australia to climb.
- [08:23]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
The Totem Pole is what is known as a sea stack, distinctive column like masses of rock that rise from the sea near the coast. Having been separated from the headland and sculpted over millennia by the erosive forces of wind and wave. These freestanding pillars are striking geological landforms due to their dramatic beauty and the fleeting nature of their existence. The same erosive powers which created them will also inevitably destroy them. Though sea stacks exist all over the world, the Totem Pole has achieved particular status among climbers thanks to its remarkable longevity and its arresting appearance. At 65 meters tall and just 4 meters across, or about 210 foot by 13 foot, it is one of the slenderest sea stacks in existence. It seems incredible that it remains standing despite the waves that continually pound its base. The Totem Pole is both difficult to access and technically demanding to climb. But Celia and Paul are up to the challenge. Both started climbing in their teens and have a wealth of experience and skill to draw On. To date, Paul has had a stellar career and is recognized as one of the most successful climbers of his generation. But Celia is also extremely accomplished in her own right.
- [09:47]
Celia Bull
Well, I come from a climbing family. My dad was a mountaineer and my mum, you know, got into climbing through him. And although he died when I was quite young, I was very lucky to have godparents who were also really big climbers. So I've always been surrounded by that. So it was just a matter of, as a teenager, I just suddenly went, oh, they're actually onto something here. And I started to look for clubs and how to get into climbing myself. And then everything was like, where can I go to uni where there's climbing? Where can I go and live where there's climbing? It was all about climbing.
- [10:23]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Celia's life soon began to revolve around the sport, and as she progressed into adulthood, she honed her skills on rock faces and mountains across the uk. It wasn't just the spectacular scenery which attracted her, but also the unique relationships she formed with fellow climbers as a result.
- [10:40]
Celia Bull
Yeah, I was lucky enough to travel a lot and go to different mountainous areas and just the places it took you and the bond you made with the people that you went climbing with, kind of unlike anything. You've really got something to interact and talk about and share, whether it's like the climbing itself, whether it's the environment, whether it's what you see, it's a bird flying by, or just the craziness of where you are or just breathing the air or. Oh, it's just, you know, it fills the soul. It fills the soul.
- [11:20]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Climbing also taught Celia important lessons about risks and responsibility, about how to ensure her own safety and that of others in potentially deadly situations.
- [11:31]
Celia Bull
There's a responsibility. You've got your own life, somebody else's life. I used to do a lot of horse riding when I was young, in the days when you were just sent out of the house for hours on end and your parent didn't know where you were, you know, so just. I learned responsibility. I learned looking after myself. I was allowed to take risks. So obviously you have accidents. I didn't have any, like, major accidents or anything like that. Just falling off, hurting a little bit, but nothing that's got me into hospital or anything like that. But it still teaches you resilience. And then just the experience of being in these places, it notches up experience. And so when you're put to the test, it's all there, it's all there. You know what to do.
- [12:23]
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- [12:57]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Eventually, about five miles along the path from their campsite, Celia and Paul crest the brow of the cliff and the totem pole comes into sight. It's an odd sensation looking down on the willowy stack from the vast overhanging crags which surround it.
- [13:14]
Celia Bull
It's an extraordinary feature. It's a really tall sea stack. I mean, it's really slender and yet it's 60 meters high. So it's just extraordinary to see. And the same with any extraordinary piece of rock. If you're a climber and it looks clean and it looks, it looks beautiful, you want to go climb it.
- [13:38]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Usually climbers have to abseil down to the bottom of the cliffs, then make their way across slippery seaweed covered rocks to the base of the stack in order to climb up it. However, Celia and Paul are lucky. Some of their climbing friends have recently been making a film about the totem pole and have already rigged up a fixed rope between the mainland and and the summit of the stack. Known as a Tyrolean traverse, the setup allows climbers to clip themselves onto the rope, then pull themselves across the void to the other side. Paul is the first to make the traverse, quickly followed by Celia. After zipping themselves along the thin line, they reach the top of the totem unclip and soon find themselves teetering on the upper platform of the tower 200ft below. The swell thrashes, the wind roars furiously around them, sending clumps of sea foam flying into the air. The totem pole is so slender it almost feels as if it's swaying in the force of the gusts. Losing little time, Paul abseils down the sea stack, heading to the base of the columns to check out the condition of the sea lashed rock. But below, the climb is divided into two pitches, or sections. The first runs from the bottom of the stack to a ledge about halfway up, and the second goes from the ledge to the top of the spire, where Celia waits to hear from Paul.
- [15:06]
Celia Bull
We'd already kind of made the decision that if if it was too wet for him to do the start. Then he would climb the rope back up to the ledge and we'd just climb the top pitch and go that way.
- [15:19]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
When Paul reaches the bottom of the pillar, he finds a tiny unsubmerged patch on a boulder jutting out of the sea. He balances precariously on his seaweed slimed perch, examining and assessing the rock to see if it's safe to climb. But moments later, a wave washes over him, soaking his boots, chalk and rope. It's too dangerous to attempt the climb in these conditions. Shouting over the roar of wind and waves, Paul calls up to Celia, telling her to come down to the midway ledge and secure his rope. He can then ascend to meet her and they can begin to climb the top pitch together. Lashed by the wind, Celia abseils down the scarred rock face until she reaches the midway ledge. She anchors Paul's rope to the rock and shouts down that it's safe to ascend. A voice almost carried away by the breeze. Paul is now on a different face of the totem pole to Celia and she can't see him. He'll have to swing around the corner of the sea stack to begin climbing the first pitch. Celia crouches on the narrow shelf, waiting for Paul to reappear, watching as his nylon rope grows taut with his body weight. It starts to swing as he flies around the corner of the pillar. And then something makes her freeze. The unmistakable ugly sound of rockfall. A series of heavy crunches and cracks, followed by silence. As an experienced climber, it's not the first time Celia's heard this.
- [16:59]
Celia Bull
When you hear rock fall, there's that horrible silence. And then there's a kind of like, okay, you know, you just hoping and praying that nothing's gone wrong. It's a horrible, horrible sound to hear. And you do hear it when you're climbing, you know, and you hear people shouting. But yeah, it's a horrible sound.
- [17:19]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Tendrils of fear snake through Celia's body as the silence stretches on. In the seconds following the rockfall, there is no word from Paul. Celia clambers towards the edge of the rocky shelf and peers down the face her boyfriend should be climbing up. What she sees below makes her stomach drop.
- [17:40]
Celia Bull
I heard the rock falling and then there's a few moments after the silence. And I looked down and when I looked down and saw him, I knew that we had a problem.
- [18:00]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
On a narrow ledge midway down a tall, slender sea stack off the coast of Tasmania, Celia Bull stares in horror towards the sea washed base of the pillar where her boyfriend Paul was supposed to be climbing up to meet her. But a recent rock fall has changed everything. Paul isn't moving. Instead, he dangles upside down in his harness, his limbs limp and lifeless, his head thrown back at an unnatural angle. Below him, the indigo sea turns wine dark, the white foam of the swell stained pinkish red as Paul's blood pours into the water.
- [18:38]
Celia Bull
Just looking down and seeing Paul just hanging from his harness, legs and arms and head just facing back, just sort of held onto the. The waist is hanging there. So obviously the rock had hit him
- [18:57]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
when he swung around the corner of the totem pole to begin his climb back up, Paul's rope dislodged a loose chunk of rock the size of a small television. He had no time to see it before it plunged through the air and struck him. From her ledge 100ft above, Celia can't tell how seriously Paul is injured, Though clearly the situation is dire. He is hanging below the high tideline. If he stays there, the sea will slowly engulf him as it rises. This, combined with the amount of blood he's clearly losing, means Celia is now in a race against time to get him to safety. Despite the grave circumstances, she manages to maintain her composure and consider the next logical steps that need to be taken to try and help him.
- [19:45]
Celia Bull
It was just like, okay, I've got to sort this out. How can I sort this out? So first of all, he's sort of upside down, so I need to get him the right way up. At that point, he's got all his weight on the rope that he's climbing and I need to put him onto a rope so that I can pull him up, which has to be sort of free running from him to a point above me and then back to me so I can use my body weight to pull him.
- [20:18]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
That's the plan. Then. The first thing Celia must do is get down to Paul and attach him to a different rope, which she can then rig into a pulley system on the ledge. With shaking but decisive fingers, she uncoils a spare rope and lowers it towards Paul, then double checks her own line is secure. Gingerly, Celia starts to abseil down the sheer face of the needle like sea stack, its slender frame impossibly delicate. It almost feels as if she could pull the teetering tower over. Plus there's the constant potential for further rockfall.
- [20:55]
Celia Bull
As I was going down, I would have been checking. I'm very nervous about that sort of thing. I pretty nervous beforehand, but very definitely, yeah, I was very aware of it
- [21:06]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
the crash of the waves grows louder as Celia descends the rock face, inching down the brittle wall, knuckles white as her hands grip the rope. Slowly she approaches the base of the sea stack, saltwater slamming against the pillar and spraying up to meet her. Eventually, her feet touch down on the hard slick boulders and she wobbles for a few precarious seconds before finding her balance. Now the full scale of Paul's injury becomes apparent to her. The chunk of rock collided directly with his unprotected head, leaving a gaping 4 inch by 2 inch hole in his skull. His inverted position means his blood is streaming out into the sea at night. Alarming rate and there is no telling how badly his brain might be affected. Yet somehow he is still alive, though only just.
- [22:05]
Celia Bull
He's obviously got a massive head injury. So my first thing is like, well you've got to get him upright so that he's not just completely bleeding out into the sea. So yeah, I mean it wasn't pretty but I knew that, you know, the only way he would survive is if I got him to the ledge where he would be safe and I got off and went and got help.
- [22:29]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Dazed and semi conscious, Paul tries to help Celia to get himself upright in his harness. But his movements are strangely uncoordinated, his limbs clumsy and weak. Celia manages to wrestle him into a sitting position and secures him in place. Her fingers are soon sticky with his blood. The couple only have one helmet between them. So far Celia has been wearing it as the plan was that she would be belaying for Paul. In other words, she would be below him, managing his rope as he climbed, thereby increasing her chance of being hit by falling rocks. Now she takes the helmet off and places it on Paul in the hope that it will help staunch the bleeding and protect his head from any further damage as she pulls him up the rocky spire. After swapping Paul onto a new rope, Celia begins to climb back up the sea slicked rock, working as fast as she can to reach the ledge 100ft above. Despite the horror of the situation she finds herself in when she gets back to the shelf, a years of climbing experience kick in and she is able to work logically to create a pulley system.
- [23:44]
Celia Bull
I had done a lot of big wall climbing, so I had done a lot of hauling of heavy bags, upper wall. But because I'd been doing big walls, because I had also done a rock climbing instructor program where you do a day of rescue systems and stuff like that, I knew what to do. It was just a matter of calming the mind and getting on with it.
- [24:10]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Celia rigs up what is known as a Yosemite hall, a two way pulley system which runs from Paul to a clip anchored in the rock above her head and then back to her. It's used by climbers to haul heavy equipment up big rock faces and means that Celia will be able to use her own body weight to help pull Paul up. But given that he's a couple of stone heavier than her, it isn't going to be easy. This will take all her strength, experience and endurance, calling big bags at El
- [24:41]
Celia Bull
Capitan and other big mountains. I had done, you know, things that are heavier than me, that are deadly weight. But yeah, I had done it, so I knew I could do it. I knew I was strong because of the experience of climbing for all those years. I knew I was really strong.
- [25:09]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
With a deep breath, Celia begins to haul, heaving backwards with all her might, straining her muscles to lift Paul's battered body up the rock face. The rope slides a fraction of a centimeter through the pulley as Celia yanks on it. Progress is painfully slow.
- [25:29]
Celia Bull
Every time you have to sort of like throw yourself back off of the cliff, using your weight and momentum to get just like a tiny, you know, you're getting kind of like an inch at a time. And, and then I, I had set it up so that every amount that you gain, the rope then blocks so it doesn't slide back down. But it was like, yeah, multiple times, using not only my weight but also momentum. So really like hurling myself backwards.
- [26:02]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
With such a devastating head wound, there's no telling how long Paul has. He's already slipping in and out of consciousness. And the sooner Celia is able to get him to the ledge and fetch help, the better his chances will be.
- [26:13]
Celia Bull
I wasn't going to be able to get him off the totem pole. I wasn't going to be able to get him from there to the car. There had to be a rescue. And the only way of getting that rescue was if I could get him safe so I could leave him, so I could go off and get help.
- [26:30]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Even if Celia succeeds in pulling Paul onto the rocky shelf, his survival will be nowhere near assured. The nearest form of civilization is their campsite five miles away. Plus, in such a remote, inaccessible location, it could take hours before Paul can be rescued from the ledge. And by then, it might be too late.
- [26:50]
Celia Bull
I missed the first part of the puzzle. The puzzle was quite intricate, but I was the first part. The responsibility was on my shoulders and just I was either going to succeed or fail.
- [27:06]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
The rope bites into her hand and soon her palms have been rubbed so raw that they begin to ooze blood. Blood and pus. After an hour of painful labor, Paul has only risen 10 metres up the rock face. There are 20 more still to go, another 65ft. Celia grits her teeth and pushes on, all the while ensuring she doesn't put her own safety at risk.
- [27:31]
Celia Bull
It's that age old thing of being safe yourself. So all through that process, every action I took, I felt safe about the action I was taking. I knew that I wasn't jeopardizing my safety either. I wasn't taking any risks at any point. It might have looked crazy and sound crazy, but it was all doable.
- [27:55]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Eventually, after three long, brutal hours of work, Paul rises to within touching distance of the ledge. But then, at the final hurdle, there is a problem. On the lip of the ledge is a small overhang. Paul has become stuck on it. Celia shouts down towards him, urging him to try and move and hoping he can understand her in his semi conscious state. Paul responds as best he can manage, moaning and flailing as he tries to get away from the lips. But his attempts go nowhere. He can't seem to move the right side of his body. The accident has left him barely functioning. He flaps his left arm and leg, desperately trying to free himself from the overhang as Celia heaves on the rope.
- [28:46]
Celia Bull
So I was kind of shouting at him, saying help, help, you gotta help me, or something like that. And he did manage to, you know, actually sort of move himself, sort of got himself unstuck. Whether it was just a micro movement, but it was enough sort of like, you know, get, get away from that sort of stalemate of not being able to get him any further.
- [29:10]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
That tiny movement is all Celia needs. With Paul now free of the lip, she pulls with whatever she has left. And the top of his blood slicked helmet finally comes into sight. Using the left side of his body, Paul manages to flop onto the ledge. They both collapse onto the cold hard rock. Celia has just achieved a near superhuman feat of strength. But her trial isn't over yet.
- [29:40]
Celia Bull
I knew it was just the start, it was just the first part of it. I had to keep going.
- [29:53]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Without losing a minute, Celia secures Paul to the rock via his rope, ensuring he won't fall off the C stack if he loses consciousness. Then she helps him to lie on his side in case he vomits. Blood starts pooling out from beneath his helmet. Puddling on the ledge, Celia now faces one of the most difficult moments of the Entire episode leaving him.
- [30:17]
Celia Bull
It was the only option. Yeah, I couldn't not leave him. And although he at that point wasn't able to talk back to me, he was definitely conscious, he was looking at me and I was able to say, I'm going now. I'm going to climb out, I'm going to run back, I'm going for help. He knew what I was doing and also he just experienced me pulling him up for hours on end. So he knew it was happening. He knew that we succeeded to do the first bit. So that would have given him kind of like, right, well, you know, it's moving along. I've just got to stay alive and be here when the rescue does come. It was very matter of fact, I probably said nice things like I love you and stuff like that, but I don't remember that stuff. I just do remember. Just got to do it, you know, Just got to go.
- [31:14]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
With a few final words to Paul, Celia moves resolutely onto the next phase of the operation. Getting off the totem pole first, she focuses on ascending the stretch of rock that lies between her and the top of the stack. Her exhausted muscles quiver as she heaves herself up the vertical face of the totem pole. When she reaches the upper ledge of the spire, Celia attaches herself to the Tyrolean traverse and wrestles her battered body across the void. As soon as she reaches the mainland, she unclips herself and begins to run. It's five miles back to the campsite and she's already exhausted. But Celia pushes the pain away, focusing only on the uneven ground in front of her as her feet slap against the dusty red earth. Sweat pours down her face and into her eyes as her sandals pound against the rocky ground, snapping twigs and tree branches underfoot After a couple of lung busting Miles, something catches Celia's eye on the trail up ahead, two figures in the distance, people coming her way. Noting their rucksacks and climbing gear. She hurtles towards them. Soaked in sweat and covered in Paul's blood, she's hard to miss.
- [32:33]
Celia Bull
I said to them, there's this guy on the ledge and I also said, don't absol down to him because I didn't want anybody else to have an accident. I didn't know who they were, I didn't know what their skill level was or anything like that. I didn't want to sort of say, you've got to go to him, you've got to help him. One of them started running back with me, but at the time I was Running quite a lot. And he couldn't keep up, so he went back to join his friend.
- [33:01]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Alone again, Celia pushes on with her head down. She continues racking up the miles as she retraces the path she and Paul took only hours earlier.
- [33:12]
Celia Bull
I was just looking at my feet because it's a rocky, uneven path that goes up and down around trees. Some of the rocks are polished. And I was in Tevas, which are like sandals because I can just very clearly visualize my toenail polish. And just the path, I mean, I just kind of didn't really look up until I got there.
- [33:38]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
More than an hour after setting off, Celia finally bursts into the campsite, her lungs ready to explode.
- [33:46]
Celia Bull
I've just got to get attention. And also, I suppose there was so much in me that was like, ah. So I just was screaming, you know, just like, yeah, they gotta know that something's really, really wrong. It's an emergency and I need help. So I just screamed. Seemed like a really good way. And it worked.
- [34:09]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Unsurprisingly, Celia's screaming and her wild, disheveled appearance immediately draws people from their tents and a crowd soon forms around her. Fortunately, there is also a ranger's station at the campsite.
- [34:22]
Celia Bull
I just told my story. The ranger got there and I said, there's a guy out there on the totem pole. He's on the ledge, he needs rescuing. And they made the phone call to the equivalent of the coast guard and everything got underway.
- [34:37]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
She's powerless now to do anything but wait. But with so much adrenaline and anxiety circulating in her bloodstream, she finds it virtually impossible to simply stand still.
- [34:48]
Celia Bull
I was then just kind of looked after. I became somebody. They had to make sure I didn't go off and do something really stupid like try and rescue them themselves. They were like, no, no, you stay here, you don't.
- [35:05]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
But waiting and not knowing the outcome is one of the toughest moments of all.
- [35:09]
Celia Bull
You're totally in the dark. You don't know what's going on. You're not in the know. You don't know what's happening. You hear, you see helicopters, you can hear radios going off, but you're away from it. It just seemed to be taking for forever and it's just the powerlessness of it. It's very frustrating, very nerve wracking, very scary because I just, you know, I just didn't know whether he would survive.
- [35:37]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Paul's location on the ledge midway up the sea stack, makes any rescue attempt extremely difficult. The nearest place a helicopter can safely touch down is the headland nearby. The two climbers Celia ran into ended up ignoring her advice and AB sailed down to be with Paul anyway. Although their presence is a comfort, they can do little for his injury. Yet in an incredible stroke of luck, the only paramedic in Tasmania with climbing experience happens to be a part of the search and rescue team. He is able to use the Tyrolean traverse to make it across to the totem pole, then abseil down to Paul. It takes a couple more hours before a rescue boat arrives and the paramedic is able to carefully descend the bottom half of the sea stack with Paul to the vessel bobbing precariously in the rough, boulder studded swell below. Some 10 hours after he was struck on the head by the falling rock, Paul is admitted to hospital in Hobart, the capital of the island. By this time, he has lost half of his blood, and when medical staff remove his helmet, they discover that his brain is visible through the enormous hole in his skull. Meanwhile, Celicia drives over 60 miles through the dark to reach Paul and is able to see him shortly before he heads into theater for major brain surgery.
- [36:59]
Celia Bull
I have that image. He was alone in this room. There was like congealed blood and clear liquid. I do remember being talked to by the surgeons. You know, I think people were really lovely to me and explained what was gonna happen on. Once I got to the hospital, I was well looked after.
- [37:21]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
For Celia, the waiting goes on. As midnight rolls around And Friday the 13th gives way to the early hours of Valentine's Day, she holds her breath for news on whether Paul has pulled through the marathon brain surgery.
- [37:35]
Celia Bull
I mean, it was so difficult. You know, the first thing is, is this person going to survive? You know, each step of the way, Is he gonna make it to the ledge? Is he gonna make it off the totem pole? Is he going to make it through the surgery? And I remember the hospital staff saying, you need to contact his family. You need to let people know that he might not make it, that he's in surgery and he might not make it. They need to know.
- [38:05]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Thankfully, Paul does make it through, but not without some serious complications. After the surgery, he's placed in an induced coma for several days. When he wakes up, he cannot speak or move the right side of his body and he suffers severe epileptic seizures. It isn't clear how much movement he'll ever get back, if any. In one single twist of fate, both Celia and Paul's lives have changed irrevocably.
- [38:35]
Celia Bull
We're in Australia, we're not home. And so the Whole thing about, when are we going to get home, how are we going to get home? You know, it just went in stages and phases and I guess, you know, just trying to cope with all of those. And it was all about Paul surviving and what that was going to look
- [38:54]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
like in all of this. The impact of the accident on Celia takes a back seat and she focuses on each new step that needs to be taken to help Paul's recovery and get them both home.
- [39:05]
Celia Bull
Maybe I ignored a bit the impact. Yes, it was traumatic and everybody would realize and recognize that it was traumatic and maybe we deal with things a bit differently now, but there wasn't kind of things in place on how to deal with trauma. And maybe I didn't really face it at the time.
- [39:30]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
Even after Celia and Paul eventually get back to the uk, the journey is far from over. It takes Paul months of rehabilitation and speech therapy to learn how to talk and move again. In time, he regains much of what he lost after the accident, though he is left partially paralyzed with hemiplegia of the right side of his body. Nearly 30 years on from the accident, Paul's recovery remains ongoing and he continues to make incremental gains. He has gone on to have a career as a writer and public speaker, using his accident and recovery to help educate and inspire others. The course of his life altered dramatically after the events of 1998, but Paul has found a new way of living and has continued to push his own limits on journeys which have taken him from Mount Kilimanjaro to Everest Base Camp in 2016, 18 years after the accident, Paul even returned to the totem pole and with the help of a climbing team, successfully summited the Sea stack, which almost killed him.
- [40:39]
Expedia/Visit Scotland Advertiser
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- [41:09]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
the months following the harrowing ordeal in Tasmania, Paul and Celia break up, each going their separate ways. They go on to have families of their own. Though they retain a deep and profound respect for each other.
- [41:21]
Celia Bull
He's a real ambassador for people being able to take their risks, whatever their kind of abilities are. And he's always been an inspiration and, yeah, very much admire and respect the man.
- [41:38]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
As for Celia, her path leads her in an unexpected direction. Though she tries climbing again, the accident has left too deep a scar. Instead, she takes up sailing. And in the months following the events on the Totem Pole, she finds herself traveling the world as a volunteer crew member on a yacht, taking her from Greenland to the Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctica.
- [41:59]
Celia Bull
Just absolutely opened my eyes. It was a completely new world that I didn't really know anything about. It was kind of like, oh, where can I go? What can I do? That's completely different because climbing, I was too scared to climb and. But it opened my eyes to a completely different world and it was like, wow, I want to do this.
- [42:19]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
The year after the accident, Celia sells her house and buys a boat of her own. In her life as a sailor, she has traveled through and lived in some of the most beautiful and far flung places on earth and experienced many spectacular adventures along the way. In 2011, she makes the decision to start her own business, Selkie Explorers, chartering sailing voyages in Scotland's Hebrides. Now living on the tiny community owned island of Egg and running a successful business, Celia remains full of plans for the future. The accident was undoubtedly a sliding doors moment, but one, she says, that has led her down a path full of positives. Despite the pain, it does hurt.
- [43:02]
Celia Bull
When I think about it, I. Well, I'm totally aware that it's one of those focus points in life where life kind of takes a different direction and where I am now and what I do now and who I share my life with would be completely different if that accident hadn't happened. It's both an incredibly sad thing, but also there's so much to joy that has come and both Paul and I have got families and just incredible things have come out of it. So there's a real positive always to take. But it doesn't stop that whole sadness for what happened. It was a tragedy, but yeah, there are so many beautiful things that came out of it.
- [44:00]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
In the next episode, we meet Mark and andy Godfrey. In 1974, two brothers aged 8 and 11, are traveling with their family to Aspen, Colorado for a skiing holiday. For the young boys, the trip is one of the highlights of the year. And as the plane begins its descent over the Rocky Mountains, their excitement for the week ahead builds to fever pitch when all of a sudden, the mood changes.
- [44:26]
Mark or Andy Godfrey
It stopped being sunny and it started getting cloudy. Things got very, very serious very, very quickly. What I really remember is just looking out the left window right next to me and seeing the ground very closely and the trees and just being confused why we were so, so low. And the last thing I remember is my mother screaming, oh, my God, we're going to crash.
- [44:55]
Narrator (John Hopkins)
That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen right now without waiting and without ads, by joining Noiser Plus.