transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:06] What technology is making it more and more difficult to get lost? Right now, I'm here in my home in Florida. I could pull out my phone, type in any random address in, say, Washington state, the other end of the country, roughly 3000 miles away. And within a few seconds, I would have turn by turn audio directions that would enable me to drive directly to that address. I know GPS isn't always perfect, but it's really an amazing example of technology. And usually it works so smoothly that we just take it for granted. But what if you're on foot and your phone's battery dies? Now you have nothing to tell you which direction to go, and you have no way to contact anyone for help. That's what happened to John. John told this story on the podcast about seven years ago in one of the very early episodes. He was hiking in an area that he was not familiar with, and a hike in the deep woods that was only supposed to be a few hours turned into days. Real People in Unreal Situations.

Speaker 2:
[01:35] The eerie silence when I walked in, and he's just staring at me. I was like, hello, like, are you okay?

Speaker 3:
[01:42] And then I had to tell him, it was me.

Speaker 2:
[01:46] There was just blood everywhere.

Speaker 3:
[01:49] They're shouting, they're screaming, they're being hit by bullets, they're hitting the ground.

Speaker 4:
[01:53] And in that moment, I literally thought, this is how I die.

Speaker 3:
[01:56] Everything changed then. And I just thought to myself, this isn't happening.

Speaker 2:
[02:02] Every single story deserves to be heard.

Speaker 1:
[02:06] I'm Scott Johnson, and this is What Was That Like? How would you describe your experience as far as hiking?

Speaker 5:
[02:21] It's been something I've always enjoyed and I've always loved, but it's not something I'm able to get out or I wasn't able to get out and do much a few times a year. But it's kind of been something I've been increasingly interested in and wanting to do more of.

Speaker 1:
[02:37] And have you hiked in this park before?

Speaker 5:
[02:39] I've never been to this park before, and honestly, I didn't even hear about it until two days before I went there.

Speaker 1:
[02:45] Oh, wow. Okay. How far do you live from the park is Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. How far do you live from that?

Speaker 5:
[02:53] So I live in the Magic Valley in Idaho, so I'm over 350 miles away.

Speaker 1:
[02:59] Okay. So how did you on a Monday afternoon, how did you end up at Bryce Canyon in Utah?

Speaker 5:
[03:03] Well, so I guess to get a little backstory of how I ended up there, I'm kind of on a as cheesy as it may sound, a spiritual journey of sorts. So I quit my job that I had been at for off and on for over seven years and I've just been traveling. And I met up with a friend in Utah, she told me about Bryce Canyon. And I was thinking about heading down towards the Grand Canyon. So she said, on your way, you might as well hit Bryce Canyon. And so that was pretty much what happened. I decided to head on down there and see what it was like.

Speaker 1:
[03:40] So kind of a spur of the moment, but sort of planned as well on your way to a larger destination. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[03:47] I'm just kind of wandering aimlessly, sort of. I had a kind of a broad goal, nothing specific in mind, but I knew eventually I wanted to hit as many interesting places as possible.

Speaker 1:
[04:01] Yeah. It sounds like a good plan, up until a certain point, I guess. All right. So this was on a Monday. That you got to the park. This is a national park, Bryce Canyon National Park. And so as we record this, this only happened like a month ago.

Speaker 5:
[04:19] It's been just at a month. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[04:23] So you had planned, you got to the park at about three o'clock in the afternoon, and the plan was to do what? How long were you planning to be out?

Speaker 5:
[04:32] So it's funny when I got there, I almost turned around. I got there and I saw that there was an entrance fee, and I didn't really know what this place is like. So I got up to the gate, I turned around and I had a second thought. I was like, okay, well, let's just do this. I made it all the way here. I should just go. So the hesitation is weird thing. But once I got there, I'd only intended on being there for maybe a few hours, maybe go hiking for about four hours total, two on the way down, two on the way back.

Speaker 1:
[05:08] Where you went in was, this isn't just like a big, huge wilderness. There was actually a path, right? A hiking path?

Speaker 5:
[05:16] Where I started hiking, yes, there is an actual path. There's a clear trail, but that trail gets covered up after so far. They apparently are not able to maintain all of the deeper trails because it just is so big, and they don't have the manpower to do it. All right.

Speaker 1:
[05:37] It's a huge area. Do you know how big this park is?

Speaker 5:
[05:39] I think I read it's around 50 miles radius.

Speaker 1:
[05:44] That's a lot of space to get lost in. Yeah. So when you started out, what were you wearing?

Speaker 5:
[05:52] All I had on me was a sweatshirt and shorts. So I wasn't really prepared to be out there for too long.

Speaker 1:
[06:02] Right. But you weren't planning to be out for too long either.

Speaker 5:
[06:05] Definitely was not.

Speaker 1:
[06:06] Did you bring anything with you like supplies or water or anything?

Speaker 5:
[06:10] In my car, I had a camel back. I had snacks. I had blankets, a tent, sleeping bag, everything. Everything in my trunk, in my car. I was very prepared, you know, up until I actually left the car.

Speaker 1:
[06:29] That's pretty ironic. Of course, you had all that stuff because you were already on a trip anyway. So you were camping out at other places along the way.

Speaker 5:
[06:39] I was planning on it. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1:
[06:41] How about, did you have a phone?

Speaker 5:
[06:43] Yeah, I had my phone and once I started down the trail the first time, I got about 10 minutes in and then I realized that there was a challenge that they had. So there's a sign that said, there's these monuments to look for on the trail. So with your map, and again, we'll come to the map in a moment, on the map that you're supposed to take a picture and then mark off the monuments that you're able to find. So I actually went back to the car for about a half hour to charge my phone. So it was at least about 70 percent when I charged it.

Speaker 1:
[07:23] Could you get a phone signal while you were out there?

Speaker 5:
[07:25] To a certain point, maybe let's say about an hour down if that and then nothing. Once you get down there, a little ways you have no service at all. Right.

Speaker 1:
[07:37] Because they don't put phone towers out in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 5:
[07:40] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[07:41] So you started out at three o'clock and what time was it? Or just take us through that day. When did you know you were lost and what did you do after that?

Speaker 5:
[07:51] I saw when I got there that they had an approximate time for Sunday. And so I kept in my mind that if I break it in half, I'm going to start walking about, I think by the time my phone got charged enough, let's say it was about four. So I was like, okay, well, I have about three hours, two or three hours to start walking down, then maybe two hours, three hours to start walking back. And once I got going, I just lost track of time because I was really feeling great. I was enjoying the walk. It was beautiful down there. And next thing I know, honestly, it was starting to get dark. And then I'm like, it's about time to turn back. And I had a flashlight on my phone, so I figured it'll last long enough if I lose my way to at least get my way back in the dark. It shouldn't be a big deal. Just follow the trail. Once it got dark is when I kind of realized that maybe it wasn't where I remember. So I ended up using my flashlight and realized that I had no idea where I was. I couldn't find my original trail, and I ended up stepping in some water. It was so dark that I was just walking around trying to figure out, at least by the time it got so dark, that just try to find a place where I can just hang out for the night. And I figured that it will be fine in the morning. It's not my first time just hanging out somewhere without a tent, no big deal. And I kind of got annoyed when I stepped into some streaming water, you can hear it moving. And I didn't really have a choice but to sleep in wet socks and shoes that night.

Speaker 1:
[09:42] That's got to be, it's hard enough when you're lost and it's full daylight. But now with it being dark, so did you just, when it got dark and you realized you're not going to know where you're going, you kind of resigned yourself, okay, I'm going to have an overnight here.

Speaker 5:
[09:56] Yeah. And at that point, I wasn't really too worried about it. I figured I'll just make the best of it and it'll be kind of a fun little story. I got lost overnight and I made my way back, no big deal.

Speaker 1:
[10:08] How cold was it?

Speaker 5:
[10:10] At first, it really, it wasn't too bad that first night. I don't really know exactly, but I would say probably got down to maybe 40, 45, somewhere around there. So it was a little chilly, but I live in Idaho, so we're used to the cold. So it wasn't too bad, but I was able to find just on the other side of that water, a small alcove that I was able to kind of crawl in and block myself and try to help keep myself warm.

Speaker 1:
[10:39] So you had a little bit of shelter anyway.

Speaker 5:
[10:41] A little bit, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[10:43] Were you concerned about wild animals?

Speaker 5:
[10:46] A little bit at first, just because I saw a sign about bears, and they said something about just leave the bears alone, which is good advice, of course. But since I didn't really hear anything the first night, it really wasn't on my mind too much.

Speaker 1:
[11:08] So you got bedded in and in for the night there. Did you actually sleep that night?

Speaker 5:
[11:15] Eventually, I got a little bit of sleep. The wind kind of picked up in the middle of the night, very early morning, and that didn't really help. So I ended up getting a little chillier, and I don't know, because I'm in an unfamiliar place. Definitely, I was a little worried, so I didn't sleep great, but eventually, I got a few hours.

Speaker 1:
[11:36] Okay. So Tuesday, day two.

Speaker 5:
[11:40] I decided that this is it. I'm going to go ahead and check out my map. When you get in there, they actually give you a map. So I'm looking at my map and I'm thinking, okay, well, this is where I started, and this has to be since the water is over here, this has to be generally where I'm at. So I start to follow what I think is the correct direction, and eventually I make my way through these bushes that have thorns, and it's very annoying to keep, I get bushwhacked quite a bit, but I eventually get to what looks like it should be the trail, and there's a tree that fell over blocking the trail. And so I try to go over or around, and that just keeps happening over and over again. So eventually at some point during the day, I decide to climb and see if I can see anything, see my car, see the street, see anything. So I climb up to as high as I can, and everything looks the same. It's all, I mean, there's a slightly colored, different colored rocks, but I just, I couldn't see anything different at all. So when I climbed down, I'm pretty sure that I just climbed down on the other side. And so that kind of started me getting more lost than I already was, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1:
[13:11] That's one of the things I was going to ask you, what was the terrain like? Is it all rocky or is it like forest or a mix? Or what's that like?

Speaker 5:
[13:20] It is definitely a mixture. So there's, down where I was at, it's mostly forest. So there's a lot of bushes, mostly, and tall grass and trees. But there are definitely parts of it where it's just rock. But yeah, it's a lot of weeds mostly, to be honest. So once I climbed down the other side, I didn't realize that once I got to the top, I was looking around and I must have got turned around. So when I got down to the other side again, it looks, even though it all looks the same, there are certain landmarks and certain trees and things like that, you can pick out and it still, it looked a little bit different from where I was just at. At that point, I was starting to get a little frustrated. But all I could do is just keep walking and try to keep finding my path. So again, I look at the map and what I think is the correct direction ends up nowhere.

Speaker 1:
[14:26] By nowhere, you just didn't see anything familiar at all, you just kept walking.

Speaker 5:
[14:32] I just kept walking. All day I kept walking. By the second day, I was starting to get pretty thirsty. I didn't have any water at that point. I didn't think to drink from the stream yet because that stream I stepped in that first night, I didn't see it, I couldn't tell what the water is like. When I woke up the next day, I should have thought about it, but I just didn't. I was thinking, well, it's only going to take me a couple of hours to get to my car. I was really thinking about much else. So by the end of the second day, I was starting to get real thirsty. So by the end of the day, actually, I didn't even make my way back to that stream until the third day. So all day Tuesday, I just walked and walked and walked.

Speaker 1:
[15:21] So you hadn't actually had anything to drink from Monday at around 3? Or maybe when you went back to your car to charge it, you've got something to drink then. So Monday, late afternoon or evening, nothing to drink all day Tuesday, nothing to eat or drink?

Speaker 5:
[15:37] Nothing to eat or drink. I think it was probably about Wednesday afternoon, by the time I finally made my way back to the stream and I started drinking from it. So the sun was definitely warm and kept beating down on me, and I did some more climbing to try to figure out where the hell I was. The climbing again was unsuccessful because everything looks the same pretty much. And so I would get down and I would just keep walking some more. That night was freezing. The wind was blowing very hard, and I ended up waking up somewhere very early in the morning, Wednesday morning in the rain.

Speaker 1:
[16:23] What were you, how did you sleep on Tuesday night? Where did you find to sleep?

Speaker 5:
[16:26] I tried to find kind of a tree. There's trees, but they're not very good shelter. So I tried to lay under the branches the best I could, tried to find it where it was thickest, and it still wasn't enough. I was drenched.

Speaker 1:
[16:44] So it started raining sometime early Wednesday morning.

Speaker 5:
[16:47] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[16:48] And you woke up lost, cold, outdoors, and soaking wet.

Speaker 5:
[16:56] And that wind, Wednesday and Thursday, that wind at night is so unbelievably cold. And it was the coldest I've ever experienced. I mean, I've been camping and hiking, and I've been out in terrain like most of us have. But that was hands down just the coldest. You can hear the wind coming from miles away. It's almost like a train, you kind of hear it coming. And then once it hits you, it just chills you to the bone.

Speaker 1:
[17:29] So what happened on Wednesday?

Speaker 5:
[17:32] So Wednesday is when I started to get really frustrated. I woke up and I just, I couldn't believe it. I'm thinking to myself, what, how did I let this happen? You know, I'm kind of getting to the point where I'm thinking, this might not end well, but I'm still keeping hope. And so I just keep walking. And at some point, when I did find that stream again, it was the most satisfying thing. Even though it wasn't much, I tried using my hands as a cup to try to drink from that stream. And that was unsuccessful. So basically I got down like a deer and just started lapping it up. And I drank for as much as I could. But then I kind of got a second wind and I realized, okay, I'm going to try this again. So again, look at the map, do my best, and then I get to a certain point where I'm feeling like, this is it. I think I found my way. There's like, there's a fence over here that's on the map. There's other land formations. And again, what is supposed to be my trail that leads directly to my car, ends up leading to just more trees and there's no trail.

Speaker 1:
[18:57] So you built up that hope that you are almost back where you're supposed to be, and then you realize you're still just as lost as you were.

Speaker 5:
[19:04] By the end of Wednesday, it had peaked both ways. I guess you could say I was feeling very hopeful at one point, and then by the end of the day, it was just once I realized that I'm going to be sleeping here one more night, I was, I guess, downtrodden. I was not only annoyed, but I was just very disappointed in myself and I let myself get to this point.

Speaker 1:
[19:30] And without anything to eat, you got to be just exhausted and starving.

Speaker 5:
[19:35] At one point, and I was, I was just thinking that if I can just live off of the water somehow, but I had to keep moving so I couldn't just stay with the water. Because according to the map, I needed to go in a different direction to get back to my car. And so at one point I found pine trees and I tried kind of munching on some pine needles, just for anything, hoping that maybe some kind of nutrients or moisture or something. I did that for just a few minutes, but I just couldn't take it anymore. It's not very pleasant.

Speaker 1:
[20:17] Probably not all that nutritious, I wouldn't think.

Speaker 5:
[20:19] Probably not.

Speaker 1:
[20:21] So Wednesday night, how did you sleep Wednesday night? Did you go back to the stream?

Speaker 5:
[20:26] I made my way back to the stream during the day, and then I just moved on again because I just had this determination that I'm going to find my car. They say it sounds again kind of a cliche, but even a blind man finds his way eventually, I guess. So I'm thinking no matter what, I just have to keep moving and this is going to work out eventually. And by that night, I ended up not sleeping so well. Again, I moved so far away from that stream where I didn't actually have anything to drink that night and again the next morning. But Thursday morning, I actually woke up in snow. I woke up the few hours of sleep I did get. I woke up and there was probably at least a few inches of snow all over me. And so basically that the rest of that morning, I tried to live off of the snow, I guess. So I ate as much snow as I could handle before my mouth went numb. My hands were numb. I was taking it off. I had to start climbing in a certain direction to try to, you know, thinking that this is where I needed to go. There wasn't snow on the ground at one point. A lot of it had melted off by the afternoon, but there were certain shaded areas that I was able to get some snow off of some branches.

Speaker 1:
[21:52] I would be thinking, if you know what direction you were walking when you went in, like if you're walking east or west or whatever, could you tell which way was east and west or north or south by the position of the sun and just walk the opposite direction?

Speaker 5:
[22:09] Yeah. I thought about that too. When I started walking that way, I would think, well, I wasn't really paying attention, unfortunately. That was definitely one of my faults. One of the many problems and the things that I did wrong is not really thinking about where I'd started. But I knew that there's actually an airport out there. And I was thinking that in direction of where the planes are coming to and from, I was thinking maybe I could look on the map and compare that airport to where my car was, because I know on the map where I had parked. And I tried that as well. And it just kept leading me to walls and ditches, or not ditches, but huge ruts in the ground where the weather had taken it. And trees that had been fallen over. And there's all these things that kept blocking me. And so I'd go around and again, I would just climb. And it never ended up really leading me to where I was looking to go.

Speaker 1:
[23:15] Sounds like an escape room on steroids.

Speaker 5:
[23:19] We're working on it.

Speaker 1:
[23:21] So at this point, you've had nothing to eat, and you've been getting by with insufficient sleep. Were you hallucinating at all?

Speaker 5:
[23:28] Yeah, absolutely. So by the end of Thursday, especially, I started seeing, I don't know, just things moving. And I was hearing things. I don't know if I was hearing if I thought it was voices, but I just I started kind of making up scenarios in my head and just thinking about or just like hearing. I don't know. Just it's hard to explain. Just hearing things that I hadn't heard the last couple of days. And then I saw helicopters fly by Thursday thinking this is going to be hopefully it. I'm going to try to get their attention. I kept yelling. Actually, the last Tuesday and Wednesday both especially, or Wednesday and Thursday both I should say, I started yelling at the top of my lungs trying to get anybody's attention. If there's any way anyone could hear me when the helicopters were flying by, I'd, you know, wave my arms up in the air and they, I don't know if they were looking for me at that point. But they, I saw them fly by a couple of times and of course no success.

Speaker 1:
[24:38] Do you know at what point you were reported as missing?

Speaker 5:
[24:42] I found out later on that, so I was actually Tuesday, I was going to be meeting up with some friends in Nevada. And that apparently is what is kind of how the Missing Persons Report got out is my friends Zev and Kirsten, were looking to have me over Tuesday. And they at some point either Tuesday or Wednesday, they didn't hear from me. And that's very unusual because usually I make it a point to either keep in touch or I show up. So apparently they contacted some people, contacted my friends and other friends and family, and nobody had heard from me for a couple of days. And so apparently they kind of looked over Facebook and realized that eventually found out that I was heading towards Bryce Canyon. But until then apparently they had no idea where I was heading.

Speaker 1:
[25:38] So they were able to figure out from social media that you were planning to go to Bryce Canyon.

Speaker 5:
[25:43] Yeah, I just happened to make a comment that I was heading there. Some of the posts I had made, I was kind of updating along the way, but I didn't actually mention that I was heading to Bryce Canyon directly until somebody just happened to invite me over somewhere else in Utah. And I wasn't, I told them I wasn't able to make it because I'm heading to Bryce Canyon. And some just happened to see that comment.

Speaker 1:
[26:08] Thursday, what was your mindset like? Like midday to late day Thursday, knowing that here we go another night out in the wilderness.

Speaker 5:
[26:18] By Thursday, it was pretty extreme, again, both ways. I had very, I was trying to keep hope alive, but many, many times I would just. So I was, while I was walking, I got so exhausted since I had no water and no food, that I could only make it so far without having long periods of rest. So I actually, many times I just passed out. I would be walking for maybe 20 minutes or 45 minutes. And again, I just kept climbing. I was trying to get maybe back to where I was previously. So I would have these goals set in mind. I would see this rock or this tree or a landmark, and I tell myself, okay, you're going to do this. If there's any chance you're getting out of here alive, you have to at least make it that far. And then, so I'd make it that far. And then I would just, I would find a place where I could just pass out. So I ended up taking many naps, I guess, throughout the day. It was more like I was just so exhausted that I couldn't stay awake. It's time that I felt myself drifting off. I actually thought this was it. I thought, well, I'm going to go out like this. This is really disappointing because I've done some dumb shit over my life. And I did not expect to go out just lost in the forest. So my mindset was not great for the most part. But I couldn't lose help though. I had to try. So every couple of hours, I just woke up and I just kept at it.

Speaker 1:
[28:05] So you never actually got to the point of saying, all right, that's it. I'm just going to die here.

Speaker 5:
[28:11] I just couldn't allow myself to do that. So luckily by the end of Thursday, after so much, I kept falling down, especially Thursday. I was so exhausted that even when I was on flat ground, my legs were very shaky and very tired. I'd been walking almost non-stop for three days. So my legs were just so tired and shaky. I was having a hard time, very difficult time even just moving at all. But then, so I would take a few steps and sometimes I would just trip over nothing. And I'd just get, just fall down. There's bushes that kept bush, I kept getting bushwhacked over and over again. These bushes had these thorns on them and kept cutting me over and over again. And I would fall into the bushes. So even though I was going through all that, I was still trying very hard to be as optimistic as possible and it was very difficult.

Speaker 1:
[29:17] That would be quite a mental challenge after several days. You know, I mean, the physical exertion that you were going through is a lot, even for someone that's staying fueled and hydrated and everything. And you didn't have the benefit of that.

Speaker 5:
[29:32] At one point Thursday, I actually got so desperate during the heat that what little urine I had in me, for the first time in my life, I was so desperate that I actually tried to drink my own pits. And it didn't go over so well. But I mean, all I had in me was just water over the water and snow over the last couple of days. You know, in desperate times, call for desperate measures, they say, right? So I was thinking, you know, I'm so far away from that water. This is all I have, man. And yeah, it didn't taste great, but what are you going to do?

Speaker 1:
[30:08] What are you going to do? That's what Barrett Grill does, right? I mean, so Thursday night, you bedded down, what was that like on Thursday night sleeping through the night?

Speaker 5:
[30:19] Late Thursday, I ended up finding kind of like a mud river. So I was able to find my way back to clear water at some point Thursday for just a few, you know, just long enough to kind of keep going. Because I was looking at the map of where I was at and I'm thinking, okay, well, here's this river. If I just go in this direction, I'm just going to be able to run into a trailhead. Maybe I'll run into somebody. So I kept following the water and it eventually led to kind of a mud river. And eventually that mud river led me to another kind of an alcove. So I was able to actually find some shelter Thursday night. I don't think it rained or snowed Thursday, but it was very cold and windy. So I was pretty grateful that I was able to find some shelter.

Speaker 1:
[31:08] Did you even know what day it was then?

Speaker 5:
[31:11] I wasn't really thinking about that. So kind of they were drifting in and out. So I was trying to, but by that point, like I said, I was hallucinating and I was hearing things. So I wasn't clear minded. There were days weren't really important to me. Like what day it was, I had not even thought of it.

Speaker 1:
[31:35] Friday, you woke up and?

Speaker 5:
[31:37] So Friday, Friday was really weird. So that night, I actually have a memory of dreaming, and or maybe it was a hallucination. I really don't know. But in my mind, this sounds so weird. I somehow had a memory or something of me being able to charge my phone somehow, just long enough to call Search and Rescue and schedule a pickup time. And that was what was going on in my mind. That somehow I charged my phone just long enough, contact these guys and schedule a helicopter over here by the Mud River at 9 a.m. And so I woke up and my head was such a mess that that was all I could think about. That was that I had scheduled a helicopter somehow and I need to meet them over here by the Mud River by 9 o'clock a.m. I kept like waking up every so often and look at the sun. I'd be like, OK, well, it's not quite 9 o'clock yet, but I think I have enough time to get over there. And probably like an hour or two into walking, I realized that I just made up this whole scenario. It finally kind of had, I guess, a moment of clarity to where they're not coming to get me and I'm doomed. I'm going to die out here. And Friday is when it really hit.

Speaker 1:
[33:07] Because your phone was long dead by then, right? I assume.

Speaker 5:
[33:10] Yeah. And the funny thing is it actually died Tuesday morning. And again, I don't know if I am just remembering this wrong or what, but I had a memory of Tuesday. Actually, trying to get a hold of my friends that I was supposed to be meeting up with, and letting them know that I'm not going to be able to make it because I'm lost. And that I checked my phone after I got it charged, a couple of days or the day I got rescued. And that message never went through. So I'm thinking that either my phone died as I was texting them, or again, I'm just making a whole thing up. I really don't know. But yeah, my phone was definitely long dead by Friday.

Speaker 1:
[34:00] Take us to the time when you were actually found. You came into human contact.

Speaker 5:
[34:06] I kept following that mud river, probably I'm guessing for a couple of hours after I'd woke up. And I thought maybe this was another auditory hallucination. And I heard voices. I hear somebody yelling. And I kind of tried to follow the voices the best I could. And eventually I see some dogs, a couple of dogs, and I see these three men on horses. And I wave and I had to yell at them and I try to get their attention. First, all I did is just ask them, how the hell do I get out of here? I'm like, I've been here since Monday and I can't figure out where the hell I'm at. And so they're just kind of pointed, they say, well, if you keep following this direction, eventually you're going to hit a trailhead. And I don't remember all of what was spoken, but I just eventually I kind of let them know that I feel like I'm dying. And anything would be greatly appreciated. And so the kid automatically just reaches into a pouch and grabs me a power aid. And his father said, hey, let's go ahead and just get you on this horse. I'll take you to the trailhead and then, you know, we'll come back to get you when we're done here in a few hours and we'll take you to your car. And so he, the father jumps off his horse, gets me on, tells his father and his son, I'm going to go ahead and take him over to the car and I'll meet up with you guys. On the way, he explained that they come there every year, they're hunting, it's a family thing, and they just happen to be over here, but they never go down this far. He said they've never been down this far before, or they just normally don't go down as far, one of the two. And so, it was just, I guess, just pure dumb luck that they happen to be there when I was there.

Speaker 1:
[36:15] They literally saved your life.

Speaker 5:
[36:17] Oh, yeah. Yeah. If they hadn't, where I was at, I don't know if Search and Rescue would have ended up finding me, at least not for a while. So, they get me to the trailhead and it's a pretty hot day, Friday afternoon. So, I was able to find one of those signs that kind of explains the park a little bit and that trailhead and shows you where you're at. So, on the pavement, I just kind of laid there. The man, I can't remember his name, unfortunately, but he gave me a first name and he was very kind, gave me a protein shake, a protein bar, and another power aid and a bottle of water. So, they actually hooked me up pretty good and said, there's these other people here. If they get back before we do, just let them know what's going on and they'll definitely be happy to take you back to your car. I actually waited around, I'm guessing for possibly a couple of hours. By that point, I was obviously pretty miserable. Actually, they gave me a chocolate bar, also a little Kit Kat bar, and I couldn't even taste it. My mouth was just so dry that even with the Powerade and the water, I couldn't taste anything. It was just not pleasant at all. So, I consumed the liquids, but tried to ration it the best I could.

Speaker 1:
[37:45] But at least the Powerade would have electrolytes in it. So, it would be rehydrating you to some degree, right?

Speaker 5:
[37:53] It was amazing. It was the most satisfying thing I could think of at the time.

Speaker 1:
[37:59] It must have been a pretty, I would imagine just realizing, okay, I'm not going to die here. That had to be a pretty emotional moment.

Speaker 5:
[38:06] When I first saw those guys, that was the first human contact in almost five days. And I had this overwhelming sense of like, this might actually be okay. Like, I might actually survive. There's humans. And yeah, I was very relieved just to even see somebody.

Speaker 1:
[38:26] So after waiting, they brought you back there, he brought you back there, and who did you see next?

Speaker 5:
[38:32] So after a couple of hours, I was just kind of baking in the sun, because there really wasn't much shade, but a little, I think it was a dune buggy actually pulled up. And I just heard a couple of voices, and I was laying down trying to just maintain, and I get up very slowly, because again, my legs were really not working at all at this point. So I slowly get up and I kind of wave those guys down, and I heard one of them say to the other, as soon as they saw me, they're like, oh wow, I'm glad that they were wrong. And I never asked them exactly what that meant, but I was kind of assumed that they didn't expect anybody to be over here, or me to be over here so far away from, or at least at this trail headed. It turns out they were actually Garfield County Search and Rescue. And again, I wish I had their names because they were awesome. Such nice, very nice people. They handed me a couple of extra bottles of water. And they said, yeah, we're actually out here looking for you. And they immediately took me to an ambulance that was waiting, I don't know, maybe 15 miles away, something like that. And then the ambulance took me to the hospital.

Speaker 1:
[39:58] So that's, I mean, if they were out looking for you and they knew you'd been gone several days, they weren't really expecting to find somebody still alive probably.

Speaker 5:
[40:08] Then I think a comment was actually made somewhere in that. Yeah. They're like, well, we, it's not often that somebody's out here for four or five days that, you know, that still alive.

Speaker 6:
[40:22] My name is Cody Sheriffs and I'm a local Garfield County Search and Rescue member, as well as a Garfield County first responder in Bryce Canyon, Utah. So what I want to talk about today is what happened that Thursday, May 3rd, 2019 when our team was called out to an individual that had been missing since April 29th, 2019 for approximately four days after hiking into Bryce Canyon's Swamp Canyon Trail. So around 1130 a.m., we were dispatched to a male who had hiked down the Swamp Canyon Trail in Bryce Canyon on April 29th and never made it back to his truck. Immediately, our thoughts were this was going to be a body recovered due to the weather conditions through the four nights, which included heavy rain, snow, along with temperatures that dipped into the mid 20s at night. It's hard to believe that anyone that spends a number of nights in those conditions without the proper gear could survive. John, meet those odds. So knowing this could be a body recovered, it still did not limit the resources that our incident commander put in place from a team that started hiking down the Swamp Canyon Trail to another team member and myself driving our search and rescue wildcat side by side. From the bottom of the canyon up towards Swamp Canyon Trail, and even having a state helicopter pick up one of our incident commanders to survey from the sky. We do not limit our available resources when it comes to a rescue no matter the circumstance. So my partner and myself started to search for John from a town called Cannonville, which is 12 miles away from Bryce Canyon. About an hour into our search, my partner and I came up to the Sheep Creek Trailhead, which for some reason we both have a gut feeling that we needed to stop, make contact with our incident commander just to let them know how far we've made it, what our location was, and that we had made no contact with our lost person, which is normal protocol. When we stopped, our radio service wasn't all that great just due to the location and the remote location that we were at. The signal was probably as bad as it can get, real choppy. So about after a minute of trying, we both kind of heard a voice from behind us as we turned around, a gentleman that had long, long hair wearing a light sweater and shorts appeared out of the bushes. I'm at that point I asked that individual what his name was, and he replied, My name is John. I then asked John where did he come from? And he actually pointed up towards the Swamp Canyon Trail at the top of Bryce Canyon, and also said he was picked up by some guys on horses and was dropped off at the location he was currently at. At that point, I turned and looked at my partner, and he had said, I think we have found our guy, which kind of blew us away just to the fact that we didn't expect John to be alive due to the conditions that he was left in for the four days. At this point, we rendered John first aid, providing him with water, performing a quick assessment on John's health, which showed extreme exhaustion and dehydration. His legs were also torn up pretty good from the bushes and anything else that he had walked through or fell down or slid off of. We did our best to contact our IC incident command with no luck just due to the location and the bad radio signal that we were getting out. Our dispatch center was also able to make out our message stating that we had found our missing guy. At that point, we decided we needed to get John back to the main road for better service to contact our local ambulance service in Tropic, Utah to meet us in Cannonville so they could further help John and transport him to the Garfield Memorial Hospital, which is about 45 minutes to an hour away in Penguin, Utah. So if it was not for that gut feeling that me and my partner had or the protocols that we have in place to make contact with our incident command to update them, we would have drove right past John. We would have never have heard him due to the side by side noise levels draining out everything else and possibly we would not have located John for another few hours, if at all. So whether it was luck or just the right time, the right place that John was found alive, the Garfield County Search and Rescue Team and other involved agencies were able to add another very successful rescue to the books.

Speaker 1:
[44:35] So from there, you went to the hospital?

Speaker 5:
[44:38] Yeah. Once I saw those guys in a dune buggy, the reality still hadn't quite set in. I had the sense of relief, but once I actually get into the ambulance, the man, one of the men that were in there from the search and rescue, hands me a sandwich. He's like, I got my men sandwiches and I got an extra one for you. And he dressed it all up for me, broke out the little packets of mayonnaise and mustard. And, oh man, just the taste of real food was almost enough to just kind of make me want to cry, man. It was just amazing. And he, everybody was being, of course, so kind and I was able to get maybe like a quarter of that sandwich down, but it was the best quarter of a sandwich I'd ever had.

Speaker 1:
[45:37] What stopped you after the quarter?

Speaker 5:
[45:39] I was having a really hard time eating. It was very weak. And again, my mouth was so dry that every, every time I'd take a bite, I'd have to wash it down with like half a bottle of water. But it didn't take me too much longer. Once I got in the hospital for me to regain my appetite.

Speaker 1:
[45:59] When you were examined at the hospital, what kind of symptoms or injuries or anything, and what condition were you in?

Speaker 5:
[46:06] Officially, they just put me down as very dehydrated. They didn't really address the superficial wounds that I had, which was fine because it was just all minor, minor cuts. I had been bushwhacked so many times that my whole left calf was like, you can almost see it like I took pictures of it, but it looked like it was like just ripped away. The whole left side of my left calf was just ripped away and then part of my right leg. But other than that, I was very dehydrated, of course. The next day, once I was able to get a little bit of rest that night, the next day when I tried to stand up, I would have this excruciating pain in my legs, just standing up. So it would start, let's say, kind of with the ankle and work its way up, all the way up to like the knee. It felt like I was just being stabbed by like a thousand little knives in both of my legs. I think it was just from the muscles being over years so much over the last five years.

Speaker 1:
[47:18] Yeah, they were just everything was depleted.

Speaker 5:
[47:20] Yeah. I had nothing left in me.

Speaker 1:
[47:24] How long were you in the hospital?

Speaker 5:
[47:25] From Friday afternoon to kind of late afternoon Saturday. So just about 30 hours roughly.

Speaker 1:
[47:34] From there, did they take you back to your car and you were able to drive home or drive away somewhere or what would you do after that?

Speaker 5:
[47:41] So luckily, I had my sister actually came from Idaho. Her and her friend were heading down. I think they're heading down to Salt Lake anyway, or they're deciding to either go to Salt Lake or somewhere else. When they heard that I was in the hospital, they actually came down Friday and visited me in the hospital. They took my keys and I went and picked up my car for me and drove it to the hospital. So that was very nice. Very appreciated.

Speaker 1:
[48:14] That's a good sister.

Speaker 5:
[48:15] Yeah, that was pretty cool.

Speaker 1:
[48:17] That's good. Boy, what a crazy adventure. And I mean, I'm sure you realize how close you came to not making it.

Speaker 5:
[48:26] Yeah. My sister and my friend came from Salt Lake. She came to visit me and they were like, when you turn your phone on, be prepared. Because once my friends kind of started getting the word out that I was missing, apparently it just escalated from there. It hit social media, our local radio aired it, and I got bombarded with messages and really it was just nuts. And yeah, it was overwhelming and definitely life-changing.

Speaker 1:
[49:08] It's kind of reassuring to know that there's that many people that care about you.

Speaker 5:
[49:13] I had questioned that for a little while and for not really any good reason, but other than, I guess, insecurities and self-loathing and depression. And so I definitely have no reason to really doubt that people care about me any longer.

Speaker 1:
[49:33] Have you been in touch with your rescuers at all since then?

Speaker 5:
[49:36] Unfortunately, no. I had no idea how to contact those guys, but I really would love to at least personally think the hunters and the search and rescue.

Speaker 1:
[49:47] Yeah, they all played an important part.

Speaker 5:
[49:49] Very much.

Speaker 1:
[49:51] I know it's only been like a month since this happened, but have you gone hiking again since then? Or would you want to go hiking again?

Speaker 5:
[49:58] I have actually. And in fact, the first real hike, good hike was yesterday. As a matter of fact, I went to, so I live in the Magic Valley in Idaho. I went up to Boise and there's a kind of a popular hiking place called Table Rock. And it's a good four mile hike. And that was very good for me to get out and stretch and just kind of get back to what I wanted to do. So it was a little bump in the road, but it's not going to stop me from following what I want to do.

Speaker 1:
[50:30] That's good. And I assume when you went on on that one, you had a fully charged phone and at least a bottle of water.

Speaker 5:
[50:35] Yeah. Actually, since then, good friends have given me like a survival pack and a personal locator beacon and they don't want me to get lost again. So I'm fully prepared.

Speaker 1:
[50:47] That's great.

Speaker 4:
[50:48] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[50:49] What do you think is the biggest lesson you've learned from this experience?

Speaker 5:
[50:53] Really just two things. Tell people that where you're going is definitely a very important part. And another thing that I've been hearing over and over again that I definitely agree with is, no matter what, if you're just going to go out on a hike somewhere, at the very least, bring some of the basics, a bottle of water, a little snack, something, and maybe a compass at the very least.

Speaker 1:
[51:22] Yeah. A compass would have been pretty handy for this one, right?

Speaker 5:
[51:25] Yeah, it really would have.

Speaker 1:
[51:26] John, it's quite a story, quite an experience. I'm sure not one that you'd want to go through again.

Speaker 5:
[51:31] No, man. I'm good. I've led a pretty interesting life, and I think that if this is going to be the most interesting thing that happens to me, I'm okay with that. It was definitely a lesson learned, and maybe it was good for me in a way, kind of expensive lesson to learn, but it's overall, it's been positive since I've been gone or since I've been back.

Speaker 1:
[51:54] All part of life experience.

Speaker 5:
[51:56] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[52:01] I wasn't able to get in touch with John for an update. So John, if you're listening to this, get in touch with me. Let me know how you're doing. And here's a question for you, dear listener. Have you ever been really lost? Like so lost you were concerned for your own safety? If so, we'd love to hear you talk about that in a listener story. This week in the Facebook group, we asked the question, what's your story about getting a weird phone call? And this can be on your cell phone or way back in the days of landline phones. I know I got some weird calls. Have you? Come on over and tell us about it. whatwasthatlike.com/facebook. Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai. And remember, you can sign up to support the podcast by going to whatwasthatlike.com/plus. Or on an iPhone, just click on try free. You'll get every episode ad free. Plus, there's more than 50 bonus episodes that are exclusive to supporters. And here we are once again about to hear this week's listener story. If you have an interesting personal story, and you know you do, just record it on your phone. It should be somewhere around 5 to 10 minutes. Then email it to me, Scott at whatwasthatlike.com. This listener talks about, as a young person, doing something against her better judgment. Stay safe, and we'll see you next time.

Speaker 4:
[53:48] My listener story takes place around 1986 and 1987. I graduated high school in 1986, and later that fall went on to start my first year of college in Charlotte, North Carolina. Well, as it turns out, college was not for me at the time. So I dropped out. Of course, I didn't tell my mother I dropped out. She was three hours away. So I would pretend that I was still going to class. But what I was really doing was working. I had gotten a job at Hardee's, it was just a fast food restaurant, and then I got a second job at Pizza Inn. One day I had to work both jobs, so I was leaving Pizza Inn to walk to Hardee's. It wasn't a short walk, but over the years, I can't remember exactly the mileage, but it was definitely more than a mile, but less than 10. So it was a hot day and I was walking and I was tired, and people kept pulling over asking me if I wanted to ride, and I was like, no, no thank you, I'm good. Kept pulling over, just I mean, car after car after car was pulling, asking me if I wanted to ride, and I kept saying no. But eventually, I was just so hot and tired, I said to myself, the next person who pulls over, I'm going to go ahead and get into the car. So sure enough, a few minutes later, man pulls over in his car, he says, hey, you want to ride? And I'm like, yes, thank you, thank you so much. Yes, sir. I get into the car, and we're not driving a good minute. And he says, you want to make some extra money? And I stiffen and I'm like, excuse me? He says, you want to make some extra money? And I'm shaking my head and I'm saying, oh, no, sir, no, sir. And he's like, oh, you don't do that kind of stuff? I was like, no, sir, no, sir. So he pulls over the car to the side of the road and lets me out the car. To this day, that story rattles me because I watch a lot of crime TV, now listen to a lot of crime podcasts. And so I know that story could have went many different ways, bad ways. So I'm just grateful that this man didn't try to force himself. He didn't take me somewhere. He just let me out of his car and I am grateful. So to this day, I have never gotten into another stranger's car. And although college wasn't for me at the time, I did go on to receive two Associates, a Bachelors and a Masters. So college became for me eventually. And I also was able to have a successful 24 year career in the Air Force. I'm grateful I don't take those things for granted. And I realized that they could have went totally rough. Thanks for listening.