Real Survival Stories - Lightning Strikes Twice: Tallest Thing on the Mountain

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

What happens when millions of electrical volts strike the human body? We meet a man who knows first hand. In 2012, Andrej Orogvani and two friends head into Slovakia’s Tatra Mountains to enjoy three peaceful days of backpacking. But the weather has other plans. Stranded atop a peak with thunderclouds closing in, it’s only a matter of time before the three pals bear the full force of one of the greatest powers in nature… A Noiser production, written by Nicole Edmunds. 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 for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether you own a bustling hair salon or a hot new bakery, you need business insurance that can keep up with your evolving needs. With flexible coverage options from TV Insurance, you only pay for what you need. TD. Ready for you. It's July the 27th, 2012. Above the jagged slopes of the western Tatra Mountains in Slovakia, a menacing storm swirls. Dark clouds plaster the sky, and fat raindrops saturate the ground below, turning the soil into sludge. Ordinarily, at this time of the year, these hills are colorful

and verdant, lush and alive with green. But right now everything is grey and black and sinister. The sky flashes and growls. On the slopes of Preslop Hill, a dangerous stream of debris is cascading down. Tree branches, boulders, stones and… 31-year-old hiker Andrei Orogvani. It was like several things happened at the same time. At one moment you are sitting and at the second moment you are sliding down the mountains. And my first idea was, is this earthquake because you just don't control anything.

There's nothing for Andrei to grab onto. because it's this earthquake, because you just don't control anything. There's nothing for Andrei to grab onto. Every tree, plant, root is engulfed in the deadly mudslide. He's totally discombobulated at the mercy of the raging storm as it tears him away from the hiking trail, through the undergrowth and down the mountainside. One feeling was now we're sliding, falling down. The second I felt just excruciating pain. When the stream of debris slows to a stop seconds later and spits Andrei out, he realizes

the pain is radiating from his legs. He's unable to move a muscle and lays completely still on the slope. But Andrei's pain and paralysis haven't been caused by an earthquake, as he suspects. It's something else, something no less terrifying. He has been struck by lightning. As he tries to get his bearings, a chilling scream suddenly pierces the air, reminding Andre that he's not alone. His friends Susanna and Tomas were hiking on the trail with him when he fell.

Have they been struck too? The high-pitched wail rings out again, andrei recognizes it as coming from Susanna. Although her cries are full of fear, at least she's alive. But what about Tomech? Andrei squints through the pelting rain, shielding his eyes with shaking hands as he slowly, painfully twists his body to look for his other friend. Then he sees him. Tomech is a few feet away, unmoving. Andrei calls out.

But the only reply comes from the storm's orchestra of pounding rain, striking lightning and rumbling thunder. Tomas was completely silent and not moving, nothing. And I was like, Tomas, are you there? Are you there? He was silent. It was just so intense feeling that something terrible, terrible wrong has happened. 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 Slovakian Andrei Oregvani. In July 2012, weeks before the birth of his second baby, Andrei and two friends head to the Western Tatras to enjoy three peaceful days of backpacking.

But the weather has other plans for their trip. And when they're caught in a ferocious storm on a precarious peak, their summer adventure becomes a dangerous battle against wind, rain, mudslides, and worse. It was like in the movie when you are having this really good time, and then something happens.

You know, in a second, it changes everything. When lightning strikes the mountaintop, sending literal shockwaves through the group, their lives are left hanging in the balance. And the storm isn't finished with them yet. And then you start to have these thoughts, maybe we are going to die, my kids should be born in three weeks, maybe I will not be part of that anymore. This was really, really scary. I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Network.

This is Real Survival Stories. It's 6 am on July 27, 2012 in Slovakia. The pale summer sun rises above the craggy outlines of the western Tatra Mountains as friends Andrei, Susanna and Tomas bounce along the rough roads in the back of a bus. As the road twists and turns to the mountain's contours and passengers gawp at the impressive landscape, the trio chatter trepidatiously about the adventure ahead. The enormous 60-litre backpacks that sit at their feet are stark reminders of their challenge. A three-day trek through Slovakia's most famous range.

But Andre is no newbie. He knows all about long, arduous days of hiking and dark nights camped under the stars. Me, I have been there or I had been there before that trip many times, especially in this first section that was close to my hometown. So maybe I've been there 10-15 times on all those mountains. So it was like, that was another part why I was maybe overconfident or hubris a little bit like, okay, what can happen? So confident is Andre that when Tomas asks if he's bought mountain insurance, just in case they run into trouble on the hike, he admits he hasn't.

These are like my local mountains and that's, I think, a thing you quite often underestimate. Kind of the more something you know, you have a bigger tendency to underestimate the risks that are there. Stretching almost 40 kilometers along the Polish-Slovak border, the western Tatras range is part of the Carpathian Mountains and consists of some of Central Europe's highest summits. The peaks have lured in tourists and hikers for centuries, with their jaw-dropping panoramic views and adventurous trails. Andrei was raised in these glorious environments.

I grew up in the northern part of Slovakia, so that's border with Poland basically, and that's the most mountainous area in Slovakia. We had woods just, I don't know, five minutes walking from our place, so even when I was nine, ten, eleven, I strolled with my friends in the nearby woods. And then as I grew older, we started to do these trips to bigger mountains over the weekend. So there was this feeling of exploration, adventure, independence. So kind of adults are not telling you what to do, where to go. Hiking was an early love of Andres, and as he grew from a child to a teenager to a young adult he always found a way to fit it in.

Even while studying for his PhD in Bratislava, he traveled almost 2000 kilometers to Wales every summer holiday to work at an outdoors activity center. Be it the wild hills of Britain or the scenic mountains of Slovakia, Andrei was never more at home than in the wilderness. But as the years passed, life inevitably got in the way of his passion. Married with a baby and a demanding job in the corporate world, it became increasingly difficult to find time to enjoy the great outdoors. After I basically finished with my university and I started to do a kind of real professional life,

then it was a period actually where hiking was more scarce. And as I had a year when I was on assignment in Spain, I was actually commuting to Madrid almost bi-weekly. Every week I was there, so there was a tough time. So going to mountains became a little bit of a special thing to me, very rare, unique. That's why, in 2012, when Andrei and his wife learned their second child was on the way, he decided to give himself a break from the intense stress of work, to briefly get back to nature. So that was for me kind of the trigger point that, okay, now after quite a long time, this

is my chance to recharge in the nature, in the mountains. So let's go somewhere, let's do something. Andrei ran the idea of a backpacking trip past his hiking buddy, 29-year-old Tomas. The pair met while working in Wales many summers before. Also outdoorsy, Tomas was keen for another trip with Andrei after so long. Next on board was a colleague and close friend of Andrei's 28-year-old Susanna. Though relatively inexperienced as a hiker, she's an accomplished climber. And with that, the trio was formed. Now, as their bus rolls its way through the stunning Slovakian scenery, Andrei, Tomas and Susanna discuss the route ahead.

Due to the mixed abilities of the group, and the fact that Andrei hasn't been on an expedition for a few years, the hike needs to be relatively straightforward. The Western Tatras are generally elevation is around 2000 meters above sea. So you start usually around 1000 meters or 800 meters, so you need to get some elevation first and then it's a ridge walk. You're all the time on the ridge. The valleys leading towards the ridge are usually quite long. It can be 10, 12, even 20 kilometers. The whole ridge is, I think, almost 50 kilometers long.

Also to balance abilities of the group, we couldn't expect that we will do it, I don't know, in one day or two days, basically running. I can run it in one day. But back then it was like, we need to take it more slowly. What could be better than a gentle three day trek, exploring the peaks during sun-drenched days, then dropping down into the valleys to sleep at night? The friends reach down and do a final check of their backpacks. They're bursting with everything they need, food, drinks,

sleeping bags, camping gear, and clothes for any weather. But Tomash brings up insurance again. You can never be too careful. Andrei takes out his phone and quickly buys some, just in case. As they near the trailhead, Andrei stares out of the bus's steamy windows, optimistic for three days of blue skies, bright sunshine, and great adventure. Even though the weather forecast looks a little less optimistic. When you have kind of only one weekend where you can go somewhere, you sometimes have this

tendency to compromise or to kind of to sugarcoat a little bit. And there was a weather forecast that says, yeah, it might be sun and cloudy with some thunderstorms in the afternoons from the heat. And you say, okay, there might be some, but they might be also somewhere else. So I think, kind of retrospectively, I didn't have 100% clear mind about that. This episode is sponsored by Indeed. Imagine you're a business owner who's just realized you needed to hire someone yesterday. That's where Indeed can help. Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire great talent fast.

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Just go to indeed.com forward slash real survival right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com forward slash real survival. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, Indeed is all you need. It's 6.30am and Andrei, Susanna and Tomas step off the rickety bus onto the trailhead of the western Tatras Range. They stretch and shake their limbs, loosening up. Right now conditions are just as Andra had imagined, and as your sky stretches out for

miles as the rising sun illuminates the green hillsides. Though their backpacks are heavy, their spirits are light as they take their first steps onto the trail. Initially, it's all about getting to higher ground, which means tackling some steep, uneven inclines. It's granite, it's rocky. It's not like you are all the time scrambling, but there is a fair share of that,

especially the first day where you need to use hands to move forward. You do not need a rope, but it's a scramble. Things aren't exactly off to a leisurely start. In fact, it's tiring work as the groups scrabble up and down the rocky mountains, using their hands to hoist themselves upwards and finding nooks and crannies to lodge their feet into. It's difficult trying to balance their weight, plus that of the backpacks, along narrow ridges and across shallow springs.

But it's rewarding, and the conditions are second to none. The morning was just stunning. It was sunrise, there was a blue sky. We were alone for first maybe two or three hours. It was not too hot, not too warm. It was just an amazing start of the hike. So we climbed this first one, maybe 1800 meters and it took us some, I don't know, two, two and a half hours. And then on that first peak, actually the ridge starts and we continue. Then you start to see these first clouds. So it was not like only blue skies but there was some clouds, some blue sky,

but it was still very cheerful. It was like yes this was the best thing we could have done, it's just to set off for this hike. The hiking route is clearly marked by little red signs on the stones. So Andre, Susanna and Tomas navigate with ease. They make good progress, stopping just a few times for refreshments, and before they know it, morning has given way to afternoon. As the sun moves overhead, casting long shadows against the cliffs, the landscape around them changes. The grassy trail narrows and becomes more rocky underfoot, with sheer drops either side.

The path grows so thin that the group has to move slowly in single file, with Andrei taking the lead. They tread carefully as they descend into a saddle, the lowest area between two peaks. And at that moment, with their boots crunching against the loose scree, the first drops of rain start to fall. Gently at first, nothing more than a light patter, a welcome contrast to the hot sun that's been warming their backs all morning. But as the descent continues, the skies darken, and a moody grey erases the blue. The rain grows heavier, and the wind picks up, turning the trail ever more treacherous. In conditions like these, there's a real risk of skidding on one of the slippery rocks, or getting thrown off balance by a gust of wind.

Missteps which could send one of them off the path and straight over the edge. As the showers intensify, the trio start to see other hikers turning back. People don't want to get stranded in the storm. But for Andre, this adversity get stranded in the storm. But for Andrzej, this adversity is part of the enjoyment. Maybe it was 3pm or something like that. It started to rain really heavily. So we put the raincoats on and we continued with the hike. And I can recall that there was this strange euphoric feeling to me that was like, yes, I don't need beautiful views because now I feel really alive because

you were there hiking, there was a really strong heavy rain falling and that was really the moment of total ignorance or stupidity. I was shouting to the skies, is this all you have? Because I felt like I am so strong. I don't mind whatever comes, you know. I felt this euphoria just from the fact that I'm alive and I'm there. Heads down, bodies bent against the raging wind, Andrei, Susanna and Tomas tread on down the narrow, slick ridge as it winds through the saddle of the mountain.

Their faces are stung by the cold, their clothes drenched in the downpour. And then, as they trek onto the next peak, Prieslok mountain, the highest summit in this region, the weather starts to clear. It actually kind of got better, so we reached the saddle just before the highest peak and the rain suddenly stopped. There were also other people in that saddle, and everyone was a little bit kind of hesitant

or considering, okay, should I stay or should I go? The skies were split into two halves, so you could see even a sun somewhere in the distance on the south, but towards the north it was really dark, gloomy, grey skies. Ever the optimist, Andrei ignores the stormy skies to the north and points to the bright yellow sun gleaming in the distance. He assures Tomas and Susanna that they're fine to continue.

The tempest appears to be receding and they're already starting to dry off, so André's sunny outlook doesn't seem unreasonable. Shaking the rain off their coats, they get back to it. Now, onto the second part of the trail, the terrain gets slightly easier. There's less scrambling over rocks and balancing on narrow ridges, and more open fields, grassy, expansive plains. But because of the distance from the trailhead, day visitors rarely make it out this far. As they trek onwards, faithfully following the red markers on the stones, Andre, Susanna

and Tomas find that they're pretty much alone. The afternoon passes pleasantly, as the trio amble through the rolling hills, skipping on stepping stones to cross shallow rivers. Then, around 4pm, just as they're beginning another winding path down from the peak of Pre-Slot Mountain, the weather changes again. The storm has returned. And this time with a vengeance.

Freezing rain falls in blinding sheets, obscuring the hiker's vision and soaking them to the bone. In mere minutes, mountain sites transform into gushing waterfalls. Trees vibrate violently in the gales, and paths turn into treacherous mudslides. The section that follows that highest peak, that's the most technical one, really tough one to handle, even in a good weather. And we had a chat with Zuzana and Tomas, and me and Tomas, I think we can do that. Yeah, it was like maybe two hours from how supposed to camping site. And we were like, okay, it's just a

rain we can do that. But Susanna, she was and I really admire her for that. She said, I don't think it's safe anymore. We should come with a different plan. She had this kind of common sense, but also the guts to, you know, overpower her masculinity. So there was like an escape route, there was a side reach. And following that way, we should be able to reach the mountain hut down in the valley, maybe in two hours. So the plan was we will hike down to that hut, we will spend the night there, and then we will continue with just alternative route next day in the morning.

It's a sensible decision as the storm shows no sign of abating. In single file led by Andrei, the trio moves onto an offshoot from the main trail. But it's one of the narrowest tracks in the mountains. By now, it's impossible to hear anything above the shrieking wind and hammering rain, and with each step they take, rocks and stones crumble beneath their feet, tumbling into the chasms below. Their progress is slow, every step deliberate. A well-disguised tree root or uneven stone could send them flying.

Andrei meticulously leads his friends down, guiding and communicating as they go. But then everything changes. I was in the front of the group and I turned around to say something to Tomas and Susanna and then there was this huge crack close to us or behind us. I could literally see how the face of Tomas went paler, his eyes went wide and he said, okay there was a lightning really just behind you, you know, really close to you. Then we realized, okay, now we need to make a decision because you were on this narrow ridge. You are the highest point on that ridge. Yes, you are sticking out of that ridge.

There is not much place where you could escape because there are these steep drops on both sides and we didn't want to climb down. There was this fast decision making, okay, we have a situation, so there is a real risk, because of course we knew that lightning can mess you up. Dozens of electric white lightning bolts flash in the sky above, striking distant peaks like fluorescent daggers. In a wide open expanse like this, where the trees are scarce and rocks and water plentiful,

lightning poses an enormous threat. They have to find shelter now. There was like this big rock sticking out of the ridge and that rock created sort of overhang So when we climb below that rock at least you have this feeling of Shelter so you are not 100% exposed you are hidden at least from one side from the wind So we decided okay, we will sit there and we will wait till storm finishes So we sat on our backpacks, we pull out our food, we put the shelter over our heads, and we were still kind of thinking, okay, so we should be fine.

Safe and dry for now beneath the jutting rock shelf, the three friends huddle together as the storm crashes around them. Thunder rumbles overhead and blades of lightning continue to electrocute the sky. The storm is moving closer. The seconds between thunder and lightning decrease to five, then to four, to three, and then... It was kind of like, imagine the huge bang and then it was like several things happened at the same time. You were at one moment you were sitting and the second moment you were sliding down the mountain. That rock we were sitting below, the lightning smashed the top of that rock.

An electric bolt from above has reverberated through the rock over their heads and fired into the three friends. A flash of lightning can be up to 300 million volts and can heat the air around it to 28,000 degrees Celsius, five times hotter than the surface of the Sun. five times hotter than the surface of the Sun. Andrei, Susanna and Tomas have just borne the fury of this awesome natural force. So this pressure wave coming from the lightning that hit this rock we started to basically slide down the mountain

and my first idea was is this earthquake because you just don't control anything you are suddenly falling down moving and so many things happen at the same time so one feeling was now we are sliding falling down the second I felt just excruciating pain so imagine you have like a needle that is stick to every single piece of your flesh, almost unbearable. Then another feeling was this smell of burning flesh. Smashed pieces of granite cascade around Andre, missing him by inches. The burning flesh he can smell is his own.

The tingling pins and needles are waves of electricity piercing his muscles. He is powerless and paralysed as he hurtles down the mountainside. This maybe took everything I just described. Maybe this took three or five seconds. I was just so intense feeling that something terrible, terrible wrong has happened. Andrei lies on the slope, unconscious and unmoving. He lies on the slope, unconscious and unmoving. Slowly he comes to. The rain fires into his face, and the wind shrieks all around.

His legs are rigid with intense pain. Then a shrill scream fills his ears. It's Susanna. ears, it's Susanna. Meanwhile, Tomas lies a few feet away, still and silent. The lightning has flung the three friends asunder, and right now it's not clear if they've all made it. And Susanna, she was panicking, shouting, screaming. She was obviously somehow hurt, but at least she was there. She was kind of present. There was a really scary moment was that Tomas was completely silent and not moving, nothing. And I was like, Tomas, are you there? Are you there? And then in

a really slow voice, he said, I'm alive, I'm here. Relief washes over Andre. But there's little time to get sentimental. The storm is still exploding all around, lightning bolts still striking the very ground they're laying on. After some time, the pain in Andre's legs lessens to a mild cramp and a tingling. He's able to move again. But one look at his friends shows they have not been so lucky.

Susanna is writhing on the ground in shock, while Thomas is too weak to move a muscle. If they don't get away from this exposed plane soon, they risk being struck a second time. And so it falls to Andrei, the de facto leader of this group, to make sense of the chaos around and to take his friends to safety. Imagine you have a box of matches and you smash it on the ground and it's kind of all over the place. So first thing I try to do is collect the kind of items

that were around us, like the backpacks and the shelter. And I try to build like a small ledge on that steep slope. So at least we have something we could sit on. So then I drag them to that ledge and I try to put a shelter about their head. And there was this really strong feeling, like I have never experienced that since that the adrenaline was pouring out of my ears like you feel at this moment

so energized so rushed just to save us somehow. Andrei works quickly in the storm collecting their waterproofs and sleeping bags and constructing a makeshift shelter. So focused is he that he pays no attention to the torrents of rain or the wind numbing his hands or the roars of thunder above. Andrei treks back and forth, up and down the slippery slopes, dragging his friends to the shelter. Each time he ventures out into the open, he

has to dodge the deadly lances of lightning that dance in his path. It's exhausting, backbreaking work. Andrei's been outside for almost nine hours by now, and has miles of hiking in his legs. There's no way he'll be able to keep this up for much longer. But he and his friends' lives depend on it, so he pushes on. Finally, after half an hour from hell, Susanna and Tomes are safe in the temporary shelter, protected by waterproofs and camping gear, and kept warm by blankets. by waterproofs and camping gear and kept warm by blankets. Andrei takes advantage of their momentary safety to step outside and make a call to mountain rescue.

But just as the phone is answered, something truly unbelievable happens. Lightning strikes twice. As I had this dispatcher of the mountain rescue on my line, there was a second lightning that hit. Luckily it was a small one, but imagine you are calling mountain rescue and then suddenly you kind of scream out of the pain into the phone because you get another electric charge into your body. Susanna later told me that she saw like a spark going from my hand down to the earth, like half meter long electric spark.

That was very intense. The odds of getting struck by lightning once are low, but twice in less than an hour. Perhaps Andrei should buy a lottery ticket if he gets out of this. Vaults of electricity course through his veins, singeing the hair and skin on his arm. He flexes the fingers in his hands and gently bends his arm back and forth. By some miracle, he is okay. But the good news only stretches so far. On the other end of the phone, the mountain rescue team informs Andre that their location

is too remote to guarantee an immediate rescue. It will take at least two hours to get a team out to them. Two more hours stranded on the side of the mountain. Will Tomasz and Susanna make it that long? Will he? All Andrzej could do now is huddle up with his friends and hope. That was, I think, the most terrifying part. Three of us sitting on the ledge. You are completely at disposal of the nature.

You can't do anything. You know, because the friends, they couldn't move. You don't have this adrenaline rush anymore. And you are sitting there, and there are these lightning hits all around, yeah? And then you start to have these thoughts that basically, well, maybe we're going to die. Well, my kid should be born in three weeks.

Maybe I will not be part of that anymore. As the doubts and the fears creep in, the friends agree to stay as a group. Whatever happens, they will face it together. You are at the mercy of Mother Nature of the storm that you are totally insignificant from the perspective of what is happening around you. This was really the scariest 45 minutes of my life. Andrei, Susanna and Tomas are drained, drenched and deserted in a vast wilderness. Every second passes more slowly than the last.

But then, finally, a reprieve. The thunder rumbles off into the distance, and the blinding flashes of lightning fade. The wind and rain are replaced by wispy clouds and a pale blue sky as a glimmer of sun breaks through. When the storm passed, it was suddenly kind of became like magical because you have this start of the sunset, so you have this really warm sun coming in, clouds disappeared, so you just see these patches of mist evaporating from the hills, and suddenly it seems so peaceful and quiet,

like nothing had happened. And there's more welcome news. On a slope above, two distant dots are growing larger by the second. As the dots move closer to the stricken friends, they morph into two human figures, other hikers. Andre frantically waves to them, calling for them to come over. When the hikers descend from the trail and reach the makeshift shelter, they quickly

clock the weakened condition of Susanna and Tomas. They explain that there's a ledge on the trail above, which is far more protected and offers better shelter from the weather should another storm break out. Once again, André digs deep into his energy reserves and sets about moving his friends to higher ground. Together he and the two newcomers stumble up the hill along its rutted slippery paths, carrying Susanna and Tomas to relative safety. After the storm finished, we were more focused on the very basic things like, are you warm? Do you want to eat something?

Little by little, Tomas and Susanna are made comfortable. But there's still no knowing how far away rescue is. The sun slips below the mountains, dying the sky first orange, then purple, then a dark navy. The five hikers stare out into the darkening abyss, praying their rescuers will arrive before nightfall. Eventually, growing impatient of waiting, Andrei wanders further down the mountain to look out for the S and R team. He wants to ensure they're not missed.

He treks a few hundred feet past the rocky ledge that was first struck by lightning, beyond the shelter he made for his friends, and onto an entirely deserted part of the peak. And as he does, a smile of relief stretches across his face. Three tiny trucks are speeding towards him in the distance. It's the rescue team. It's at this moment, with the end in sight, that Andrei allows himself to take his phone out of his jacket pocket and make an important call.

I decided I would give a call to my wife and I just kind of told her what happened and that was the moment when I was really kind of broke into tears because all this tension and all this kind of adrenaline that was like it was gone. Kind of realized that what I lost almost, I lost the time of being with my kids and with her. That was a really, really emotional moment for me. With his wife on the end of the line, Andrei watches the rescuers approach.

When they arrive, he stuffs his phone back in his pocket and jogs alongside the team, guiding them to the ledge where his friends are waiting. More help shows up, a mixture of mountain rescue professionals and volunteers. They get to work quickly, wrapping Susanna and Tomas in aluminium blankets to keep them warm before strapping them onto stretchers. It's still a challenge from here, traversing the narrow, gnarly trails while carrying two injured individuals as the darkness grows.

You are still in quite technical, steep terrain, so it's not that easy to carry a person down. So you need like six people per stretcher, sometimes four if it is really narrow. They started to carry them down and it took a while, but maybe after 45 minutes to one hour, they were able to carry them down to a grassy, saddle area where a helicopter can land. Andrei walks behind the stretchers, chatting to the rescue team as he goes. It's almost 9 p.m. and they're reliant on the feeble beams of their head torches to make

out the path. Progress is slow but steady, and when they eventually reach the saddle, a helicopter is already hovering above. A wire dangles down from the rotorcraft, and Andrei's friends are attached and reeled in before being flown to the nearest hospital. Though he has been out in formidable weather for over 12 hours, and has been struck by lightning twice, Andrei assures the rescue team that he's physically fine. He says he'll make his own way to the hospital.

A few hours later, Andre sits on a gurney, a doctor checking him over. It's confirmed that, astonishingly, his injuries aren't serious. His friends, however, have been somewhat less fortunate. Tomas got kind of the highest load or biggest hit because he was really weak and he could barely speak. He didn't have any obvious injury, but it was really clear that he is not in a good shape in a way that he was really weak, unable to move by himself. Susanna, she had more serious burns,

because if you have like an iron buckle or a zip or something like that from the metal, then usually these are the easiest place where the lightning gets into your body. My wife, especially, she started calling me unbreakable. When I came with the rescuers, she saw like, you look like nothing happened to you. What's wrong with you? Are you unbreakable? Unbreakable he might be, but Andrei doesn't credit his survival to any personal or physical

attributes. Instead, he believes it was mainly down to luck, as well as a profound sense of purpose he felt when he saw his friends in trouble. I can vividly recall that I felt this tremendous responsibility for not only myself, but for my friends that, okay, I'm the one that needs to act now, that needs to do something,

and not kind of be occupied with the panic or with the fear. Andrei's actions on the mountain undoubtedly helped to save the lives of Shizana and Tomes. Thankfully, none of their injuries are long lasting, and all three friends are able to return to their normal lives within months, even eventually making it back into the wilderness when time allows it. I haven't stopped going out there to outdoors, to the mountains, but I'm definitely more cautious about storms and I have this kind of a set of rules in my mind that now I'm

really thoroughly applied. So last time we're getting other parts of the Tatras and I said to my friend that whenever we hear the thunder nearby we turn around and go. So I'm very much conscious about that, but you can still enjoy mountains despite this kind of experience. mountains despite this kind of experience. Just three weeks after the lightning strikes, Andrei celebrates the birth of his second child. He names him Tomeš, and he welcomes his baby boy into the world with a renewed respect and gratitude for life. Especially these first minutes after the lightning, it was so terrible,

painful, scary. I definitely became very grateful for what I have in my life because you really, really realize how you can lose everything you care about in a second. So this sense of gratefulness I carry ever since. Next time on Real Survival Stories, we hear the story of the biggest offshore disaster in history. In the summer of 1988, 29-year-old Joe Menon is stationed on the Piper Alpha, an oil rig in the North Sea. It's one of the busiest rigs in the world, around the clock drilling operation. But in July 1988, a catastrophic fire breaks out on the platform, and the 226 people stationed

on board will be thrust into a hell on earth All of a sudden there was a huge explosion and the whole platform rocked back forward We actually didn't know what had happened. You just knew something horrendous had happened That's next time on real survival stories Listen right now without waiting a week by subscribing to Noiza Plus.