Real Survival Stories - Buried in a Gully: Tragedy in the White Mountains

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

Joe Lentini is an elite mountain rescuer in New Hampshire. He regularly faces high-stakes decisions and dilemmas. But in 1982, during one treacherous mission to find two missing teenagers, disaster strikes Joe’s own team. What should he do now that one of his own is in the line of fire?… A Noiser production, written by Joe Viner. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward, let us know. Drop us an email at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. It's the 25th of January, 1982. On the lower slopes of Mount Washington, New Hampshire. A rectangular truck-sized vehicle known as a snowcat rumbles along a rugged mountain trail. Its wide tracks leave patterns in the snow. Its headlamps beam through the blizzard. From the vehicle's juddering backseat,

29-year-old Joe Lentini glances up at Mount Washington. The colossal bulk of the vehicle's juddering backseat, 29-year-old Joe Lentini glances up at Mount Washington. The colossal bulk of the mountain's east face looms above the treeline, streaked with ice-filled gullies and rib-like granite spurs. He shudders at the prospect of returning there tomorrow. Joe is a member of the New Hampshire Mountain Rescue Service. For the past 48 hours, he and his colleagues have been out searching for two missing teenage boys. It's been dangerous, exhausting, frustrating, but that's the job.

We've had two really hard days. We've really been pushing hard. And we don't know where else we're going to be able to look because we're not finding them. Joe rubs his mittens together and stamps his boots. It's 15 degrees below freezing with gale force winds and whiteout snow. As team leader, Joe's foremost responsibility is towards his fellow search and rescue volunteers. The fact that his team has made it through unscathed is as close to a silver lining as he's going to get. Right now, they're driving to a different part of the mountain to collect their last two team members.

When everyone is safely on board, they'll head back down the slopes to get their last two team members when everyone is safely on board they'll head back down the slopes to get warm in the trailhead hut joe sits back and listens to the squeak of the snow cats windscreen wipers but then suddenly the radio hisses the words he hears through the static chill his blood. We're partway down. We haven't started to hit the crossover trail yet, and the radio just crackles, and Michael is on the radio screaming,

Avalanche, Avalanche. screaming avalanche avalanche 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 travel to the White Mountains to meet a man whose job it is to risk his own life in order to rescue others. As a senior team member of the New Hampshire Mountain Rescue Service, Joe Lentini faces high-stakes decisions and dilemmas most days of the week. How can he do his job while also ensuring the well-being of his colleagues and friends?

How far should he push a rescue attempt before accepting defeat? And what does he do when one of his own comes into the line of fire? There are 10 or 12 of the toughest people I've known in my entire life. And I think everybody's crying. We are just like, we are, I am just in a state of shock. I'm John Hopkins. From Noisa, this is Real Survival Stories. It's January 1982, in the small mountain town of Jackson, New Hampshire. It's an ordinary weeknight inside the Shovel Handle Pub.

While the tail end of a blizzard howls outside, warmth and chatter fill the cabin-style saloon. A group of young men drink beer and throw darts. They're members of the New Hampshire Mountain Rescue Service, a highly skilled team of alpine specialists whose job it is to recover lost or injured climbers. Among them is Joe Lentini. Not yet 30, Joe is the quintessential mountain rescue climber. Young, talented, and certainly not lacking in self-assurance. As one of our team members said, we were tan, fit, and hideously self-confident.

You know, picture, you're 26 years old, you're 27 years old, you're a full-time professional climbing guide, you're a member of this very elite technical rescue service, you know, maybe we think a little much of ourselves at times. Hideously self-confident, perhaps, but not without reason. This is an exclusive group. They don't let ordinary climbers into their illustrious ranks. Only the best and the boldest are eligible. You had to have rock climbing skills, ice climbing skills, winter mountaineering skills, and have a resume of having done all of this and been seen doing this by members of the board of directors.

The reality is we work in conditions that other people would consider unimaginable. I mean, truly unimaginable. And your team members are critical for your safety. And I am critical for the safety of my teammates. So it's hard to get on. You have to have been seen in action. You have to have a cool head and be able to do the work. As well as a mountain rescue operative, Joe is also a professional guide, leading tour groups around the peaks and ravines of the northern Appalachians. All the more remarkable, given he grew up with a crippling fear of heights,

a fear that has taught him the importance of preparation and pragmatism. I've been guiding for 50 years. I have never had anybody more afraid of heights than I was. And I tell people that and they go, oh, you're just, I go, no, I'm not. I'm not making this up. It is feeling the exhilaration,

but it's also understanding that all of this gear is here for a reason. And if you use it properly, you're going to be safe. By the age of 18, he was hooked. After high school, while his friends went off to college, Joe headed out west to focus on his climbing, working odd jobs to make ends meet. After honing his skills for a couple of years, he received a call from a friend who had started a climbing school back in New Hampshire and wanted Joe to be one of his instructors. He said, if you come back east, I'd love to have you work for me because I want people I know. I discovered very early on that it wasn't about the climbing. It was about sharing my passion and teaching people something I loved.

So one thing led into the other and I became a full-time professional guide and I became a member of the New Hampshire Mountain Rescue Service. Tonight, the gang is in the house. Tiger, Doug, Michael, Albert. All tough, unorthodox guys, utterly dedicated to their profession. They live out here, on the fringes of society, isolated from the rest of the world, willingly choosing to spend their time in some of the most extreme conditions in America. The White Mountains sprawl across one quarter of the state of New Hampshire, encompassing a vast wilderness of plunging valleys, evergreen forests, and windswept tundra. The pinnacle of the range is Mount Washington, thought to be one of the deadliest mountains in the U.S., responsible for more than 150 known fatalities. With its exposed position, it is notorious for unpredictable weather. In winter, sudden whiteouts and hurricane-force gusts can descend in the blink of an eye.

Working side-by-side in such life-threatening terrain, Joe and his colleagues have built a relationship that goes beyond that of co-workers. We're a family. We have 55 climbing team members, men and women, but there's a connection. It's like I'm looking at one of my brothers or sisters, because I know at some point I could be standing in horrendous conditions with this person on my right or on my left. And that's a connection. That is a real connection with the human being because I am putting my life in their hands and they're doing the same. Joe has forged many close ties with his fellow mountain rescuers. One of his tightest bonds is with 29-year-old Albert Dow. He was a local New Hampshireite, born and bred, a little different from my upbringing, and that was sort of fun. I jokingly used to say he was a

narrow-minded Republican who had such tunnel vision that he couldn't see two people standing next to each other. Not true, but he just, he he was you know he he was the old new hampshire type and we just really you know we just enjoyed getting out and climbing together i really enjoyed being with him as joe steps up to take his turn at darts he laughs along with the banter coming from albert and the others. But even on a carefree evening like this, there's always a lingering feeling that they could be called into action at any time. The mountain never lets them rest for long. From the director of The Greatest Showman comes the most original musical ever. I want to prove I can make it.

Prove to who? Everyone. So, the story starts. Better Man, now playing in select theaters. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada. Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn Ads.

Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com. It's January the 23rd, 8 o'clock on Saturday night. Joe is in his living room, sitting by the fire with a drink. Climbing gear hangs up to dry above the wood-burning stove. His boots sit by the door in a puddle of melted snow. All day, Joe has been out with a tour group on Mount Washington until deteriorating conditions force them to turn back.

A storm has kicked up, bringing heavy snow and 65-mile-an-hour winds. It's one of the most essential skills of any alpine climber, knowing when to turn back. You don't beat the mountain. The famed Italian climber Emilio Camici said, the mountains speak in rough language. He said that once when he walked along the base of a cliff and rocks started falling on him.

You know, sometimes the mountain is nice enough to let you go up. You can always come back, unless you get yourself killed. As Joe watches the crackling flames, his eyelids slowly droop. Yawning, he stretches out on the sofa, and within seconds, he's fast asleep.

Then, at ten o'clock, the telephone rings. Joe sits bolt upright. A call at this hour is rarely a good thing. He stands and races across the room to the phone, vibrating on the hook. The voice on the end of the line confirms his suspicions Apparently, two ice climbers went up Mount Washington earlier today And never came back The plan is for the search and rescue team to convene at 5am At the Appalachian Mountain Club headquarters Joe gets his game face on

So that's it. Now I switch gears. You know, I get my stuff ready to pack up to head out at four in the morning. So I can be, you know, make sure I'm there at five o'clock in the morning. I'm not horribly concerned at this point. There's a storm on us right now, but it's sort of like, OK, this is not an unusual situation. It's just after 5 a.m. Joe climbs the stairs to the main meeting room at the AMC headquarters. A few of the search and rescue team are already here,

getting their gear together and studying maps. One of them updates Joe with what they know so far. The missing climbers are 17-year-old Hugh Hare and 19-year-old Jeff Batzer, youngsters from down south. Where exactly they're from isn't clear, but the implication is they're not local, and quite possibly didn't know what they were getting themselves into. Their last known location is Odell's Gully in Huntington's Ravine, an ascending ice valley eroded into the east face of Mount Washington. From the base of the gully, it's a 600-foot climb to the summit. With weather that can turn wild and violent in a heartbeat, the young climbers could have gone in

the wrong direction, got stranded, or tumbled down the slopes. All bleak possibilities. But it's important for Joe to remain clear-headed. I'm not worried for them. It's more analytical. I'm just trying to figure out where could they be right now with these conditions? Where might they hide out? You know, is somebody hurt they could be anywhere when the rest of the search and rescue volunteers arrive they come up with a plan they decide to split into two groups of 12. one team will head to the base of huntington's ravine where they will scour the gullies for signs of the missing climbers.

The second team will take the snowcat and drive along the Auto Road, a serpentine access route that leads to the summit of Mount Washington. Joe is appointed team leader of the second group. Wasting no time, they bundle into the snowcat and set off. Freezing mist shrouds the mountain. Hurricane-force winds drive horizontal snow against the windscreen of the vehicle. The snowcat can only get so far along the road before visibility becomes too poor.

We take a team up. It drops us off as far as it can get. And we start hiking up. And the plan is we're going to go to all the way up and look over the top of the gullies and then maybe drop down a little bit and do a little searching. Continuing on foot,

Joe and the rest of the team set off in single file, slogging uphill through the squalls. The temperature has plummeted 25 degrees below Fahrenheit, and the wind is now gusting up to 70 miles an hour. Within minutes, Joe's balaclava has frozen stiff. Ice crystals encrust his goggles. He flexes his fingers inside his mittens to keep the blood circulating. They keep going, picking their way up towards the summit as the morning drags on. The snow beneath their feet is dense and wind-packed. It could be anywhere between one and 20 feet deep. At around midday, they pause to rest and take on some calories. Huddling close together, Joe does a quick head count.

But there are only 11 climbers here. Somebody's missing. We get partway up the road and it is howling and it is snowing and we eventually get to the point where we can't see a thing and one of our team members just steps over a little edge and sort of falls down this little hill not very far five six eight ten feet not he's not hurt but we realize that that's it. It's getting worse. We can't see a thing. It's probably 20, 25 below. This is too dangerous. Joe's teammate is unharmed and quickly makes his way back to the group. But it's a tense moment, and one that, in an instant, changes the dynamics of the operation. The team, of course, has a duty to find the missing climbers.

But as a leader, Joe's responsibility, first and foremost, is the welfare of his fellow volunteers. The number one priority is, is the team safe? Can we keep going? Can we turn around? That's the number one priority. There is the drive to want to potentially help this person if we can, but it's not worth sacrificing one of our team

members. They constantly have to make these kinds of complex calculations, weighing up risk and reward. If the two missing climbers are still alive, they're already on borrowed time. But you have to know when to turn back. And so the team begin the long, slow stagger down the mountain. Buffeted by the wind, they look like boxes on the ropes, pummeled senseless by the elements. Joe radios across to the other group. They too are heading down after an unsuccessful search. They'll have to try again tomorrow. It's the following morning. Joe is hiking up through Huntington's Ravine. Looming above him is a 500-foot gully, a sheer snow-filled crevice running between two granite walls.

After yesterday's unsuccessful search, the team has decided to try a different approach. Three pairs of climbers are exploring separate gullies inside Huntington's Ravine. Six of us go up. Doug Madeira and Steve Larson go up Pinnacle Gully, which is the far right classic ice climb. Absolutely beautiful.

The next one to the left of that is Odell's Gully, which is the gully that these two climbers were doing. That is Albert Dow and Michael Hartrick, his partner. And then I'm the next gully over, south gully, and I'm there with Tiger Burns. Conditions have improved slightly from yesterday. The temperature has risen from minus 25 to minus 15, from bone-chilling to merely flesh-numbing. The wind has eased off too, blowing at a brisk 40 miles an hour. There is, however, one serious

complication. Yesterday's heavy snow has left deep, powdery deposits piled up along the rim of the ravine. The risk of an avalanche is majorly increased. Joe and his colleagues have to be on constant alert. Tiger and I move up and along and start up into South Gully. We're listening to the radio, listening to what the other teams are doing. We have some climbers down below with the snowcat that's positioned there for an emergency. If anything happens to one of us, we have a team ready to help them. This is highly technical climbing.

It's hard enough to concentrate on his technique, let alone keep an eye out for avalanches and traces of the two missing climbers at the same time. But Joe is a pro, as are his colleagues. They've done this before. Slowly, with methodical precision, they pick their way up the near vertical side of the ravine. The hours pile up like snowdrifts, one on top of the other. They're about halfway up the gully when Joe comes to a sudden stop.

Frowning, he inspects the smooth, chalky texture of the snow beneath his ice tools. But he spots something concerning. It's a wind slab, a type of snowpack created by large accumulations of gale-blown ice crystals. Now, a wind slab is a different type of snow. It is not like fresh fallen snow. It can be like styrofoam. When you have a storm and you have the wind blowing over an edge, just like water in a river over a rock,

on the other side of that edge, the wind is going to curl in and it's going to take the snow it's transporting and drive it into itself. The problem is this structure holds a lot of weight. There's a lot of mass here. And if you fracture it, however that fracture happens, everything below that fracture line is going to come down. Wind slabs are heavier and denser than the snow underneath them, which makes them one of the leading causes of avalanches. Joe knows this firsthand.

I triggered one when I was 19 years old. My partner and I were not killed, and the fact that we weren't was mostly luck. I was new to climbing. I knew about 5% of what I needed to know. And fortunately, that 5% came into play right before the fracture line happened. To this very day, I can close my eyes and see that fracture line from when I was 19 years old. He calls across to his climbing partner, Tiger, and points out the danger. They're in full agreement. They can't risk triggering an avalanche. They'll have to head back down. Joe radios over to the other groups.

Michael and Albert have seen tracks at the top of the gully that they're in, Odell's, which is the gully that the climbers had been in. So they're going to follow those tracks. But Doug and Steve, who are in Pinnacle Gully, now are repelling back down the gully to meet us down at the bottom. Joe and Tiger climb back down to the base of Huntington's Ravine. Gradually, the slope bottoms out and the climbers' feet reach flat ground. As they trudge back towards the snow cats, feelings are mixed. So far, they've failed in their rescue attempts, but they've succeeded in avoiding any further disasters. I have to say, I'm sort of relieved.

I'm almost a little giddy at this point. We've had two really hard days. We've really been pushing hard. And it's like we're done for the day, and we don't know where else we're going to be able to look because we're not finding them. It's about three in the afternoon. The snowcat trundles through the trees. Joe hears more disappointing news crackle through the radio.

The missing climber's tracks disappeared at the top of Odell's gully. Another dead end. Done for the day, Michael and Albert are now descending into the nearby Tuckerman's Ravine, where the snowcat is heading to pick them up. The guys on board are quiet, exhausted, and depensive after a tough 48 hours. They need to get down, get warm, and reassess. But then, in a flash, the situation changes. Then we cross over a crossover trail and then go up into Tuckerman's to pick up Michael and Albert. And we're partway down.

We haven't started to hit the crossover trail yet. And the radio partway down. We haven't started to hit the crossover trail yet. And the radio just crackles. And Michael is on the radio screaming, Avalanche, avalanche. Powder flies up from beneath the snowcat's tracks as it accelerates through the trees. Everyone has snapped into action mode alarmed and alert just as one rescue mission seemed to be winding down a new more personal

one has suddenly sprung up joe's eyes are fixed on the mountain a barely discernible mass of white against the winter sky it's like a switch was flipped. Now we're tense. Now I'm really worried. We have no idea what this is going to be. When it comes to avalanche rescue, every second counts. If recovered within 15 minutes, a victim stands a good chance of being found alive. Outside of that crucial window, however, the odds become increasingly narrow. Depth is also a major factor. A victim buried under one meter of snow stands a 90% chance of making it. But for someone buried two meters deep, their survival odds are cut by a third. Joe is only too aware of these grim statistics, these life and death margins.

Adrenaline courses through his veins as the snowcat thunders down the trail. A few minutes later, they reach the mouth of Tuckerman's ravine. The team jumps out of the snowcap and starts picking their way over the icy rocks. Joe scans the terrain for signs of Michael and Albert. They've only gone about 400 feet when somebody points out a large pile of debris and powder at the base of a gully, the aftermath of an avalanche.

The sense of dread grows. But then, several hundred feet further up the slope of the ravine, there is a welcome sight. We spot Michael up above. He has cleared enough snow so he can yell from there. He's got one hand free that he'd use to get to his radio. No sign of Albert. While three climbers rush over to help Michael, the others continue looking for Albert.

They judiciously work their way up the ravine, using ten-foot long metal avalanche probes to pierce and prod the snow. You do a probe line where you stand in a line, everybody shoulder to shoulder, on command. Sometimes you probe down, you hit something, probably a chunk of ice.

You have to know. I mean, you have to know. You can't just go, oh, let's dig for this. No. You push, it breaks through, you know it's not a person. The minutes race past. Joe grows increasingly desperate as he stabs the ground. And then, he hits something. He applies a bit more pressure. Could it be Albert?

He feels a crack, and his probe breaks through a chunk of ice. False alarm. As they search for Albert, all thoughts of the missing ice climbers fade away. The goalposts have moved. One of their own is missing, and they're running out of time to find him alive. Finally, after ten painful minutes... Somebody on my left yells,

I got him. He could tell from the probe that there was somebody down there. We go over, we get in a line. We actually, we practice this as a team. We practice digging, we practice probing. Joe and another team member drop to their knees and start rapidly shoveling snow. When tired limbs slow them down,

they roll away and let two more take their place. Within a minute, a flash of color appears through the white, Albert's helmet. He is buried almost two meters deep, and he isn't moving. They continue excavating with even greater urgency. After a few more seconds of intense digging, they see a gloved hand, then a shoulder. They can't rush this next part.

Albert could have easily broken bones in the fall. Any hasty movement could make the situation worse. We dig around, being very careful, very careful about protecting his spine. We get him up, but he's not breathing. They lay Albert flat on the snow and search for a pulse. Nothing. One of Joe's colleagues, a trained EMT, starts performing chest compressions. But still, no heartbeat.

Then the EMT inspects an area of bruising underneath Albert's chin. It confirms that the worst has happened. He's caught something underneath his chin. He caught a tree or a rock on the way down and broke his neck. It's blowing. It's still snowing. There are 10 or 12 of the toughest people I've known in my entire life who I've just spent two horrendous days with. And I think everybody's crying. We are just like... We are... I am just in a state of shock. I am just... I'm devastated.

I mean, this is not what's supposed to be happening. Albert's body is carefully strapped into a litter and loaded onto the snowcat. Joe sits in the back, his hand tight around the stretcher, holding his friend's body in place. He stares off silently into the middle distance. Nobody speaks. Each team member is left to their own private thoughts as the vehicle jostles them from side to side. Down at the AMC headquarters,

a few local reporters stand around in the parking lot. Clearly, news of the two missing climbers has reached the press. They'll have a different story now. Joe doesn't hang around to speak to anyone. He has an important job to do. I get to my car and I take off because he has a fiancée

and she's got to be terrorized wondering what's going on, how are things going. I have to get to her before she hears something. Joe watches the road quietly unspool beyond his headlights. When he reaches Albert's house, there is already a car parked outside. Two people are standing in the road.

One is Joni, Albert's fiancée. The other is a mutual friend who must have heard the news on the emergency radio. He's standing next to her. I'm like 10 feet away. I get out of my car. He's just telling her what's happened. And she's screaming. I mean, she's screaming.

It's just so devastating. Later, Joe drives home. When he gets in, he takes off his wet clothes and fires up the wood burner. He pours himself a bourbon and watches the flames. What we say is the thousand mile stare. You're just sort of looking and you're not seeing anything. It's just like your eyes are open and you're looking forward, but you're just, you're staring a thousand miles into nothingness, trying to comprehend what just happened.

While Joe stays home, trying to come to terms with the loss of Albert, the search for the two missing climbers continues, albeit with dwindling expectations that anyone will be found alive. With no new leads, the time is drawing closer to call off the search and declare the missing climbers dead. It's two days later. On the northern slopes of Mount Washington, in a massive alpine basin known as the Great Gulf, a snowshoer trudges along through knee-high drifts.

They're out on a solo trek, taking in the scenery. The blizzard that has been raging for the past four days has finally abated. The boughs of the fir trees are heavy with snow. Trail signs are barely visible beneath thick, wind-blown hoarfrost. As the snowshoe makes their way through the valley, something catches their eye. Tracks in the snow, zigzagging off into the trees. Puzzled, the snowshoer follows the tracks, which go deeper and deeper into the forest, eventually coming to a stop.

And there, lying half buried in the snow, are the two missing climbers. They're down there for a couple of days. They're down there for three days. They gave up. At the end, they thought they were dead. But there was somebody out just snowshoeing. They weren't searching.

We weren't searching in that part of the mountain. It made no sense to us. Somebody on snowshoes saw tracks and they found them and pulled them out. Against the odds, with the search all but over, a stranger has stumbled upon Hugh Hare and Jeff Batzer, feeble and freezing, but alive. The two young climbers are airlifted off Mount Washington and flown to hospital. Severely frostbitten after four days in the elements, both climbers will need urgent amputation

to prevent the spread of gangrene. 19-year-old Jeff will lose a leg and an arm, while the younger of the pair, 17-year-old Hugh, will lose both legs below the knee. It isn't long before news of their survival reaches Joe. At that point, I don't know these two climbers. I don't know these people, but I hate them. I've just dug my friend out of the snow and he's dead and it's their fault. It's a year and a half later.

Joe is walking through downtown North Conway, a colorful village which lies in the shadow of Mount Washington. The last 18 months have been tough for everyone in the New Hampshire Mountain Rescue Team. Albert's death rocked their tight-knit community. It was hard.

I spent a lot of time sitting up with friends, sitting up with Joan, his fiancée. She's still a friend of mine to this very day. Just crying. And just, just trying to live through it Sitting up with Joan, his fiancée, she's still a friend of mine to this very day, just crying and just trying to live through it and keep moving forward.

For her, it was even so much harder. I mean, it's just unimaginable to me. Following the avalanche, once the press attention had died down and once all the necessary inquiries had been made, all that remained was sadness and shock. It hits harder when it's one of your own. For Joe, he admits he felt a considerable amount of anger towards the two teenage climbers, whose disappearance started all of this. But as the months passed, Joe started to find out more about Hugh and Jeff, and what went wrong for them on the day they went missing.

They got up Huntington's Ravine. They were going to go to the summit. When you're going up that ridge, the wind is blowing from the west, you're coming from the east, the wind is curling over behind you and hitting you in the back. They got up to near the top of the ridge. Now the wind's more direct, but now it's hitting them in the face. So they decide, which I can understand fully, the wind's been hitting them in the back. To get down, they must go into the wind. That brought them down into a section you would not want to go to. They headed down into the Great Gulf, which is just steep, tough bushes, not stuff you want to walk through. They worked their way down to the bottom of the ravine there and not knowing where they were. And over this time, I started looking into who are these people.

And I realized Hugh is 17. He's an exceptional climber. He's 17 years old and he made a mistake. I made a much worse mistake and put myself in an avalanche situation when I was 19. Just about everybody on our team, we were hardcore climbers. We've all done some stupid things. You know, I said earlier the tan, fit, and hideously self-confident. Well, when you're that, when you're young, it's really easy to look down on other people because you're so egotistical about where you are. But then you start to see he's no different than us. I did stupid things. I nearly

was killed by an avalanche. I lucked out. He made a mistake. He made a mistake any one of us could have made. A few months ago, Joe heard that Hugh, now 19, had moved up to North Conway. It seems he didn't want to shy away from what happened. He came up to live in North Conway because he said he wanted to be around for people to talk to, to confront. First of all, can you imagine that? Somebody at this point, maybe he's 19, having that bravery that he would want to go to North Conway to have people are angry at this man, this young man, and yet he wanted to be there. Joe hasn't yet directly encountered Hugh around town, but he's spotted him out climbing, scaling difficult walls with two prosthetic legs.

He developed his own prosthetic limbs and climbed, and we would see him out climbing and he was unbelievable how good he was with these you know tube legs he had created joe crosses the street opposite the mountain equipment climbing shop as he does he spots a group of his friends and colleagues sitting outside the cafe next door. Chatting among them is a young man with two artificial legs. With a deep breath, Joe takes his chance to finally meet Hugh in person. So I walk over, and I've got a lot going on in my head right now. But I walk across the street and I go,

Hi, I'm Joe Lentini. And I reach over to shake his hand. And he sort of backs off a little bit because I think he's not sure whether or not I'm going to take a swing at him or not. But I don't. And I just introduce myself. And he introduces himself. And I say, it's nice to meet you.

In the 40 years since the fatal avalanche on Mount Washington, Joe has remained a team leader with the Mountain Rescue Service. During that time, he has led countless life-saving missions. In every case, he tries to withhold judgment. It made me more introspective in how I looked at other people, and it made me be aware again of these are people, I don't know them. I'm not going to say what they did was wrong. It made me more aware of I'm there to do a job not to judge people. He has also closely monitored the life and career of Hugh Hare. Following his rescue in 1982, Hugh has dedicated himself to making a constructive impact on the world, changing the lives of amputees like himself.

He said that he felt if he didn't do something positive with his life, that would be a disgrace because of Albert sacrificing his life. He goes to college. He gets a master's and a PhD, one from Harvard, one from MIT. He becomes the world's leading designer of prosthetic limbs. It is beyond comprehension what he has done. For his part, Joe continues to raise awareness of the bravery of all search and rescue volunteers whose work, too often, goes unrecognized. These are the people that turn out

in the middle of the night to help other people. And you have no idea who they are, you've never seen them, you don't know who these people are, but they turn out in conditions you can't even imagine. Some people grow up feeling a responsibility to other people. And that's a really important and a really great thing,

that we're all on this planet, and if you see somebody who needs help, you should help them. It's that simple. Next time on Real Survival Stories, we meet mother of three, Fiona Drummond. In the scorchingly hot summer of 2021, the Drummonds are on holiday in the south of France, enjoying a relaxing road trip through lavender fields and vineyards. But that all suddenly changes as the picturesque landscape is overwhelmed by a ferocious wildfire. The Drummonds will find themselves trapped in their holiday home, surrounded by flames with no hope of escape.

That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen today without waiting a week by subscribing to Noiser Plus.