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Host: At the crux of every survival story is a pivotal decision point. The choices we make when the stakes are high can mean the difference between salvation and struggle, misery and hope, life and death. When it comes to dire situations in the backcountry, the options can be imperfect and the time in which to weigh them is often short.
In today’s episode, we witness the fast decision-making of three separate survivors, all at the heart of one historic and catastrophic flash flood. On August 16, 2008, heavy rainfall caused floodwater to tear through the Havasupai reservation of the Grand Canyon. More than 450 hikers, campers, and villagers were evacuated.
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Out Alive is a podcast about real people who survived the unsurvivable. Check out more seasons and episodes here.
Many survival stories include an element of helplessness. When you’re far from civilization, hurt, unable to move, there’s little you can do to keep yourself alive. It’s helplessness that sets in when things get really, really bad. But there’s another feeling, however dim, that keeps you going: hope. Though you may be unable to help yourself in the face of extreme danger, there’s comfort in knowing that someone out there may be looking for you. That comfort that hope can be what allows you to survive. And if you get into trouble in a place where Search and Rescue is accessible, that hope multiplies.
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Matt Dyer: The breath, you would not believe the smell of that bear’s breath. He’s dragging me, and I just, a voice he could mean said, you know, you you’re going to die.
Host: Polar bears, the grand beasts of the Arctic, are one of the most fearsome predators on earth. Healthy males can weigh half a ton, stand eight feet tall on their hind legs, and possess enough power to get all that mass moving at 25 miles per hour. Few sights in nature will inspire the sense of panic and doom as seeing a polar bear loping across the ice headed your way.
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Host: Search and rescue personnel are often the heroes of the stories we tell. These professionals and volunteers save thousands of hikers from danger every year relying on extensive navigation, first aid and search tactic training. Without search and rescue many lost and injured hikers would not be lucky enough to make it out alive, but this story features a new kind of hero.
When Jeremy Humphrey set out to find a missing hiker in July of 2020, he didn’t have any training or fancy rescue gear. But he had something else, legs that could carry him for miles and miles in a day, an intimate knowledge of his local mountain range and a voice inside him telling him that he was the right man for the job.