Real Survival Stories - Pinned by a 4-Ton Boulder: Inches from Death

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

Kevin DePaolo is a ‘digital nomad’. He works remotely, lives in his van, and freely travels around the United States seeking new experiences. One day, he sets out to explore the desolate plains of Santa Rita Flat. But here, suddenly, the on-the-move adventurer will find himself trapped - crushed by an immense weight, unable to escape. Somehow, Kevin must find a way to hang on, as the life is squeezed out of him… 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 for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With TD Direct Investing, you can get live support. So whether you need help buying a partial share from your favorite tech company, opening a TFSA, or learning about investing tools, we're here to help. But keeping your cat off your keyboard? That's up to you. Reach out to TD Direct Investing today and make your investing steps count. Plus enjoy 1% cash back. Conditions apply. Offer ends January 31st, 2025. Visit td.com slash dioffer to learn more.

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 just before 3 p.m. on December the 5th, 2023, in the foothills of the Inyo Mountains near the California-Nevada border. It's a crisp, clear afternoon. Lengthening shadows creep across the Santa Rita Flat, a desolate expanse of sun-baked

slopes strewn with enormous granite boulders. These rocks have been here for millennia, remnants of the last ice age, deposited by the melting of ancient glaciers. They lend the landscape an eerie stillness. On an isolated hillside, two small figures clamber around and over them, tiny dots in the vast, quiet scenery.

They are 26-year-old Kevin DePaulo and his friend, Josh. Using chisels, pickaxes, and brushes, they're digging for treasure, searching for colorful minerals and ancient fossils hidden inside the many thousands of rocks that surround them. It's a physical but therapeutic activity. Kevin is relatively inexperienced at this, but always up for trying new things.

He watches Josh, the more seasoned of the two, as he hacks away beneath a massive, grand piano-sized boulder. He knows a lot more about this stuff than I do. He did start digging and pulling out some really cool rocks, and so I started getting really, really stoked. It's hard work, so he kind of went off on the side for a little while to rest, and that's when I started going under there with a scraper tool and basically scraping the underside of this boulder.

Kevin scans the sand for telltale flashes of color. After just a few minutes, he finds some interesting specimens. I decided to take a few steps back to just admire like some of the rocks that I was pulling out of there. And basically when I was doing that, I wasn't really looking uphill or anything. I was sort of just focused on what I was looking at in my hands. And before I could really even do anything, I just hear him yell,

look out, Kevo. Josh's warning comes too late. Out of nowhere, Kevin is thrown backwards by an enormous crushing force. And this day of calm transforms into something else entirely. Before I could even look up, I basically felt this like massive impact from this otherworldly weight. It was like getting hit by a linebacker in football or something. And I looked up at my buddy's face,

and he had the most deranged look I've ever seen on his face. And at that point, I could tell things were terribly, terribly wrong. 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 Kevin DePaulo.

At 26 years old, Kevin is still figuring things out. He enjoys a nomadic lifestyle, roaming the country in his van, seeking out thrills in the great outdoors. But one fateful afternoon, on the Santa Rita flat, his free and easy life unexpectedly leads him into extreme peril, into a battle against immense natural forces.

It wasn't just a bad dream, because usually if it was a bad dream, you'd wake up at that moment. I sort of looked up at the sky, and I started to think, this might actually be it. I might actually die up here. With inches separating life and death, how long can Kevin hold out? He'll need to rely on medical miracles, the unwavering support of a friend, and the incredible kindness of strangers if he's to have any chance of escape. I'm John Hopkins from Noiser.

This is Real Survival Stories. survival stories. It's 9.30. on Tuesday, December 5, 2023, just outside the town of Bishop in Inyo County, California. Kevin DiPaolo sits inside a car, cruising south along Route 395. From the passenger seat, he watches the mountains unravel beyond the windscreen. His buddy Josh is driving, drumming the steering wheel in time to the radio. With his shoulder-length blonde hair and laid-back demeanor, Kevin bears all the hallmarks of a native Californian. In fact, he originally hails from upstate New York.

After finishing college in 2017, he assumed that an office job in the big city awaited him. But then, three years after graduating, the world changed. It all started during COVID, when the world was kind of in cahoots. I went on two big road trips around the whole country. So I'm from New York, but we went to go check out. I saw California for the first time and just saw basically the whole country. So I'm from New York, but we went to go check out. I saw California for the first time and just saw basically the whole country. And I was really intrigued by the different lifestyle that people live. Kevin landed himself a gig doing remote work as a programmer and started saving up for

a van. I was really inspired by all that freedom and stuff like that. And so I realized I really wanted to do that too. So I basically had my car for a while. And so I would camp in the woods and then go to the library and work my remote job during the day. I saved up a ton of cash and was able to buy this van and build it out and stuff. So I kind of use this as my home base now. Since starting life as a digital nomad in 2020,

Kevin has really stayed in the same place for long. But for all the freedom afforded by his roving lifestyle, there's one place he finds himself returning to time and time again, the rugged mountains of Eastern California. I've been to 49 out of 50 states and the Sierra Nevada mountain range is my favorite of them all just due to its jagged peaks and just the fact that it's like so remote. So I was always really drawn to that area. It has the highest point, which is Mount Whitney, which is only a couple hours away from the lowest point, which is Death Valley. And there's like a 14,000 foot difference. So everything in the area is like kind of, it's just really a magical place.

Today, Kevin has parked his van in the old frontier town of Bishop, which is situated along the Eastern Sierra Pass. The pass is a fabled 500-mile stretch of the most varied terrain in North America, encompassing snowy mountains, alpine forests, waterfalls, and deserts. Every day here offers a different adventure. I was always really into extreme things. I really like rock climbing and sort of those sports that are, like, really intense action sports and surfing and stuff.

And so I always had, like, kind of a thirst for adrenaline, I guess you could say. This part of the world is a magnet for adventurous types. People like Josh, who Kevin met a few months ago while bouldering in the backcountry. Josh is 10 years older than Kevin, but the two get on like a house on fire. In fact, he's become something of a mentor, a rare, stable presence in Kevin's life of flux. And he showed me a lot of climbing stuff, and he showed me a lot about the area.

So he did really essentially take me under his wing, and he showed me a lot of cool stuff, yeah. Josh turns off the highway and onto an unmarked service road. After a while, the cracked tarmac gives way to a dirt track. Then, sun-parched scrub. They've arrived at the Santa Rita flat, a sprawling mountain basin.

Way off in the distance, scraggly green mesquite bushes cling to a rocky ridgeline, an undulating backbone against the desert sky. Josh pulls over and the two friends step out of the car. The valley floor is littered with boulders of varying shapes and sizes. Some of the larger ones would be ideal for climbing. Let's know why Kevin and Josh are here. Today is a down day. Nothing extreme or too strenuous.

A day for exploration. In their packs, they brought all the tools they'll need for rock hounding. The practice of finding and collecting precious rocks and minerals. It's another of Kevin's hobbies, a way he's learned to appreciate this ancient landscape. What's really fascinating is when you're finding some of this stuff, you're actually like one of the first people that's seen it technically. And it's just been sitting there for thousands and thousands of years untouched. The Inyo Mountains are rock

hound heaven. The two guys hope to return home this evening laden with glittering quartzies, burnt orange ambers, and crystalline calcites. Kevin takes out his phone and checks the map. We had planned like four or five days in advance to go up to this spot. It's like very rugged and rural, and you can kind of just like dig for rocks anywhere up there,

but it's all off-trail, there's no trail or anything like that, and there's not really a lot of service either. So when you're out there, you're kind of out there all alone as they hike further into the wilderness kevin occasionally glances down at his phone's gps his service is dwindling from two bars to one then nothing matter, he's only brought his phone to take photographs. He slides it into his pocket and forgets about it. It's a beautiful winter's day. The pale blue sky is ribboned with clouds. The sagebrush crunches softly underfoot. As they make their way towards the distant hills, the sun warms

the backs of their necks. Soon they've worked up enough of a sweat to remove their jackets. Gradually the terrain steepens until they're climbing a 45-degree slope. They keep ascending for a couple of hours until sometime around midday when Kevin and Josh reach their destination. It's a rocky outcrop halfway up the hillside with a large, boulder field sloping away below them. They set down their bags, remove their chisels and pickaxes,

and dive in. As they sift through the dust and shale, Kevin follows Josh's lead. At one stage, Josh starts excavating beneath a larger boulder perched on the slope. It's the size of a small car, a rounded mass of granite, just one of many that surround them. Kevin watches Josh scrape away the sediment and pull out a stone speckled with yellow crystals. You did start digging and pulling out some really cool rocks. And so I started getting really, really stoked.

It's hard work. So he kind of went off on the side for a little while to rest. And that's when I started going under there with a scraper tool basically like scraping the underside of this boulder. It's just before three in the afternoon. With Josh off to one side, Kevin eagerly digs beneath the boulder. Just for a moment, he hesitates, glancing up at the sandy textured rock.

Copper colored lichen clings to its weathered surface. These boulders haven't moved in thousands of thousands of years, and they are like massive, you know. You can climb them and hang on them with all your weight, and generally they don't really move. Satisfied and safe, Kevin resumes chiseling, completely absorbed by the process. After a few minutes he emerges. I decided to take a few steps back to just admire like some of the rocks that I was pulling out of there and basically when I was doing that I wasn't really looking uphill or anything I sort of just focused on what I was looking at in my hands and before I could really even do anything I just hear him yell,

Look out, Kevo! It happens in the blink of an eye. Kevin doesn't even have time to look up. All of a sudden, he's polexed by an immense, shocking impact. It was basically just, like, one grain of sand that was holding the thing up on the hill, and it just, once it decided to tumble, I was just in the way. I basically felt this like massive impact from this otherworldly weight. It was like getting hit by a linebacker at football or something.

Kevin is knocked backwards, spread-eagled in the dust. Before he can get his bearings, jets of pain are shooting up his legs and into his midriff. Before my adrenaline, or my senses really kicked in, I was literally on my back with this 6,000 to 10,000 pound boulder

just sitting in my lap, crushing both of my legs. And it was actually on my pelvis as well, teetering on my chest and threatening to continue rolling down the hill and threatening to basically crush my skull. And so there I was on my back holding the boulder up with all my might and I looked up at my buddy's face

and he had the most deranged look I've ever seen on his face and at that point I could tell things were terribly, terribly wrong. 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.

Halfway up an arid slope at the edge of a sprawling desert valley, Kevin finds himself in a horrifying situation. He's lying flat on his back, with his head positioned downhill. Around 8,000 pounds of granite is crushing his waist, and is about to roll onto his chest. Kevin braces his arms and pushes, straining every sinew to keep the boulder from crushing his torso. But it's like trying to bench press a pickup truck. He doesn't stand a chance. I was just, like, gonna die if that thing stayed on my chest, basically.

And so that's why I started having, like, my last thoughts on Earth. And Christmas was, like like 21 days away all I wanted to do was like see my family for Christmas and I couldn't even believe that my life was almost being like taken from me like that Kevin's panicked eyes lock onto Josh's. Josh is frozen with shock. His friend needs him, but he cannot move. I basically yelled at him a bunch of times. I was like, you gotta help me, man. This thing's crushing me. It's killing me.

I kept yelling, it's killing me. You gotta get it off of me. Kevin's voice wrenches Josh out of his daze. He suddenly leaps into action, and not a second too soon. Josh grabs his pickaxe and dives forward, driving it into the earth and wedging the other end against the boulder, temporarily holding it in place. A few centimeters more, and it would have flattened Kevin's upper body like an eggshell. It's a moment of quick thinking that has almost certainly saved his life. For the time being, anyway. The boulder is still positioned squarely on Kevin's pelvis and legs.

And it only takes a few more seconds before his fight or flight response kicks in. We don't like being trapped as humans. It's a very, like, odd feeling. And so in the split second, even if you were to get yourself in more danger, your number one priority is to escape. And so I started trying to, like, move my legs and finagle my way out of there. And I realized that my left leg that was being crushed by the boulder, I was able to sort of dig the sand out from underneath of my leg while kevin claws

at the earth josh throws his body weight against the boulder while keeping one hand on the pickaxe even a millimeter of purchase might help his friend pull his leg free kevin thrashes and squirms like a snared animal. Gradually, he begins to worm his left leg out from under the rock. But the fabric of his trousers is still pinned. He tears at the frayed edges, ripping the material. Until finally, with a last, great, heaving effort, he tugs his left leg out. As Josh continues to brace himself against the rock, Kevin quickly moves on to the right leg, hoping the same trick will work again.

I thought that we could get my other leg out as well if we just started digging it out, but any time that Josh would start digging, I just felt the massive weight of the boulder coming down more and more. It's no use. The more they dig, the of the boulder coming down more and more. It's no use. The more they dig, the more the boulder inches forward, further crushing his leg and hips, increasing the risk of a final, fatal roll. The two men stop digging. Kevin's right leg is going nowhere. But with his left one free, he is just about able to rotate his torso until he is

positioned diagonally across the slope. At least if the boulder does fall now, it won't be landing on his head or chest. Kevin props himself up on his elbows. His breathing is short and sharp. He's in a state of shock. He's now able to look at his free leg. And what he sees does nothing to calm him. I do actually remember looking down and seeing basically like a nine inch incision in my leg. I basically looked down and I saw all this stuff in my leg that you're not supposed to see. I actually literally saw my artery in my leg. My bone as well.

The boulder has ripped a stomach-churning gash along the length of his inner thigh. Severing muscle, snapping veins, and breaking bones. From his pelvis all the way down to his knee. Blood now pours from the wound, pooling on the dusty earth. Being trapped might have been a blessing in disguise. Now the leg is free. There's nothing to stop it from bleeding and bleeding. Yet again, it's Josh's quick thinking that buys Kevin a bit more time.

Immediately he was like, don't even look at that. He handed me basically like a makeshift tourniquet that we made out of clothes and I just started putting all this pressure on it in order to stop from bleeding out or something. Kevin keeps pressure on the wound, which frees Josh to jump up and get his phone out of his pocket. They're in an incredibly remote spot with next to no signal. But he has to try.

Dialing 911, he holds his phone to his ear. After a few agonizing seconds, he hears ringing. It's an enormous piece of good fortune. When you're like sitting down digging in the hole, you have no service at all. And sometimes you need to walk like 10 feet or something even just to like get a lick of service. So the fact that he even had a lick of service was, it was honestly a miracle. Josh is through to an operator now.

Kevin can hear him describing the situation and their location. Then Josh calls out to Kevin. Help is on its way. They just have to wait until the search and rescue team can get to them. But there is a kicker. It's unlikely that anyone will reach them in less than five hours. Kevin swallows hard. At the rate his leg's bleeding, he doesn't know if he'll survive the next five minutes. His pulse quickens, a mixture of

adrenaline and dread coursing through his veins. Still speaking to the operator, Josh is given strict instructions to keep Kevin calm. If he panics, Kevin's heightened heart rate will increase blood flow, causing him to bleed out faster. Struggling against the mass of granite isn't merely futile. It could also be fatal. The operator on the phone knew, too, that the only way I was going to make it through that is if I stayed calm. Because if you start freaking out,

you get all this blood pumping through your veins and your arteries, and it could just be much, much worse. It's four in the afternoon, about an hour since the accident. Kevin continues to take deep breaths, in through his nose and out through his mouth. His trembling hands are clamped around the blood-soaked clothes swaddling his left leg. The rest of his lower half is almost entirely numb beneath the weight of the boulder. Josh hovers close by, his phone clamped to his ear, the 911 operator still on the line, offering words of encouragement. It's the only help available for now.

Kevin glances up at his friend, who reassures him again that rescue is coming. Josh is trying hard to keep his voice calm and his head level but it's far from easy he was just kind of like chain smoking a bunch of cigarettes because he was really worried too and he was freaking out too so yeah it like every time i looked at his face he just had this like deranged look on his face that like things were extremely bad and that's how i could tell too and that sort of freaked me out too because it's not that i was just imagining any of this, like we were both living it. And so it made things that much more real.

On the hillside, the minutes crawled by at a glacial pace. It's torture, physically and mentally. And Kevin's emotions fluctuate wildly. I went through different phases of like completely freaking out, like yelling at the top of my lungs and then just closing my eyes and feeling like I'm literally going to fall asleep. But I knew that if I fell asleep, then there is a possibility that I would not wake up. And so that's what kept me going. I just was trying to stay calm.

At least the tourniquet seems to be working. The bleeding appears to have slowed a little. But then there are the injuries that Kevin can't see. So I was just really unsure about what was happening. And that's what made me so worrisome and made me think that I was still going to die because I didn't really know how much time I had left or whether I had any time at all. In fact, Kevin's concerns are remarkably close to the truth. He has indeed suffered a blood clot. But he has no idea that right now, that clot is all that's keeping him alive. A small, fragile mesh of platelets and proteins has congealed at the exact point where his femoral artery has been severed in his left leg. Typically, an injury of this magnitude spells certain death.

Most victims lose consciousness after a minute and bleed out shortly after that. But the clot is holding firm, albeit it's extremely delicate. One wrong move, one dramatic increase in blood flow, and it could burst like a dam. Of course, Kevin has no idea quite how perilous his situation is. But after two hours under the rock, things are looking bleak enough. Unclear how much longer he can hold out, he shouts to Josh with a single request. I actually asked him if he could just call my mom really quick so that I could talk to her for one of the last times

just in case I wasn't going to make it. And he basically told me, he was like, no, you're not calling your mom. He was like, as a matter of fact, you're not dying on my watch. He's like, you're not going to die. You're going to make it out of here. And that kind of gave me all the motivation that I needed to just keep fighting through it.

I love living life so much. I love this life so much that I would use every last bit of my body to fight to keep it basically. At that point, I kind of told myself in my head, I'm staying alive for me and my family. And so I had this fighter's mentality that I wasn't going to go out. The fact that I wasn't bleeding out, I actually had a chance. Even with this renewed vigor, Kevin's fate isn't in his own hands. Evening is approaching and pressure is continuing to build against the clot in his leg. One way or another, something's gotta give. It's 6pm.

Kevin has been trapped under the boulder for over three hours. And there's still no sign of search and rescue. But Josh hasn't left his side once. Kevin keeps his breathing rhythmic and steady. If he can stay like this, calm, level-headed, then he might just be able to scrape through. And then, in this almost meditative state, Kevin sees the helicopter. When I saw that helicopter, it was about like three or four hours into the accident, and I thought that they were just going to drop out of the helicopter and start helping me out. In this monochrome desert, Kevin and Josh are difficult to miss. And sure enough, the chopper soon passes directly over them,

rotor blades swarming against the fading light. The aircraft turns sharply and circles back around. The pilot seems to be looking for a place to land. There is clearly a problem. They flew around us like eight times, circled the area, and they decided that it was way too difficult to navigate in a helicopter like that. So they just shot straight back into the mountains and just left us there.

So I had all this hope that I was going to finally be rescued. And it was just a tease because they just flew out. It was kind of just like a punch in the face. I couldn't even believe it. And then a lot of the times I was thinking, I don't know how long I could actually hold on like this. It's 7 p.m., four hours after the accident. Darkness now engulfs the India mountains.

The sun has disappeared, taking the warmth of the day with it. So when the temperature dropped, I didn't really have pants on, mind you. So my leg was underneath this freezing cold boulder. And so I started to like shake just out of being cold. And that would cause my leg to shake under the boulder and it would just bring all this severe pain.

Mercifully, the 911 operator has authorized Josh to light a fire. Amid all this dry sagebrush, bonfires are strictly forbidden in the mountains. In all but the most exceptional circumstances, this qualifies. Kevin watches the flames cast flickering shadows on the boulder. He feels the warmth spreading through him, suppressing his violent shivers. Another hour grinds by. Kevin strains his ears, constantly listening for any sign of the rescue team.

But the only sounds come from the soft crackle of the fire and Josh's nervous pacing. Then suddenly Kevin hears Josh shout. He's spotted something on the crest of the hill. Kevin cranes his neck. He sees it too. Headlamps flaring in the hill. Kevin cranes his neck. He sees it too. Headlamps flaring in the darkness. Help has finally arrived. The team got there on foot and I could see their headlamps at the top of the mountain. And I could see them start to come down, yeah. It was the most relieving feeling

I've probably like start to come down, yeah. It was the most relieving feeling I've probably felt to date. The lights slowly bob and weave their way down the slope before a group of reassuring faces in high-vis jackets eventually emerge from the gloom. They're a team of volunteers from the Inyo County Search and Rescue and the County Sheriff's Office, plus a much-needed medic. I basically thought, like, these are the most heroic beings I've ever seen. And so I start watching them coming down as like an army.

One of them was an EMT. Another one was this Australian guy that had this tool called a high-lift jack. The EMT started attending to my injuries and taking my vital signs while the other guys were basically scoping out what is the most efficient way to get the boulder off of this guy's leg without causing more injury. Moving the four-ton boulder safely off of Kevin is going to be no easy task. They're not out of the woods yet. But after settling on a plan, the rescue team works with swift, polished efficiency.

The Australian guy, he had a high-lift jack, so he basically propped that up on the side of the boulder and started jacking it up, and I could already start to feel the weight come off of my leg. They wedge more supports in to prevent the boulder from slipping. And as they pump the handle of the high lift jack, they slowly ratchet up the weight of the rock. Somebody else drills a bolt into the granite, then runs a length of rope to another boulder further down the hill.

They drill a bolt into this second boulder and tie the rope around it. They basically created this pulley system. Two guys grabbed me by my armpits while they started to put tension on the rope and tension on the high lift jack. This makeshift mechanical hauling system is an incredible bit of improvisation. But if the jack falls or the rope snaps, things could go from bad to worse. One of the team gives the signal. Kevin grits his teeth as the two rescuers who are grabbing his arms get ready to drag him free. They did it in such a way that it had to be very strategic

because if there was any false move, it would have just came back down on my leg and it probably would have made things so much worse. We would have been in a totally different situation. So everything had to be executed absolutely perfectly. As they continue to work the jack and put tension on the pulley, in tiny, gradual increments, the pressure eases. And then Kevin is jerked backwards, a sudden, seamless movement. He's free.

They could get the boulder up off of my leg enough to like free me so they got me out and then the boulder just came came right back down kevin is immediately placed inside a litter a special reinforced stretcher the medic assesses his injuries the leg and pelvis that have been trapped are obviously in a bad way. But amazingly, there are no open wounds on this side. The internal injuries will have to be dealt with later. They can now properly dress the wound on his other leg, replacing the blood-soaked sweaters with the new tourniquet and clean bandages.

The EMT states that Kevin needs to be operated on as soon as possible to repair the ruptured artery. There's still a danger of bleeding out. But where they are, up in the mountains, getting Kevin to a hospital is easier said than done. Nobody but the military can fly helicopters at night. And so they told me, they were like, hey, you're rescued, but you're likely going to have to spend the night up here.

So I was basically getting prepared to spend the night up there. And the guys would have stayed up there with me and everything. But they basically sent out a message or a rescue request or something that was picked up by the Lemoore Naval Air Station, which was on the other side of the mountains. It seems Kevin's luck is finally turning. There's a Navy pilot available and willing to help.

After an hour waiting to get military clearance, the pilot radios in. He's on his way. And after another interminable hour of waiting, the rescue chopper arrives. Amid swirling dust and blinding search beams, Kevin is hoisted up, swinging perilously in the night sky, before he's stowed safely inside. Ten grueling hours after the accident,

finally the helicopter turns and thunders off across the hills. Around 45 minutes later, Kevin arrives at the hospital in nearby Fresno. They wheeled me into the hospital, and that's when you see all the bright lights, the things that you hear about in the movies, where it just shocks you, basically. And before you knew it, they threw me on an emergency room table, and there's like 10 people just pulling at all my body parts. They did a bunch of MRIs, CAT scans and stuff to get my injuries. And eventually they came in and told me the news.

They were like, hey, you fractured your pelvis in several spots and you severed your common femoral artery in your leg. And so you're going to have to get emergency surgery right now. But Kevin's been incredibly fortunate. His pelvis is broken, but his right leg, the one crushed beneath the boulder, has somehow avoided any traumatic fractures, even if it has suffered extensive bruising. And then there's the fact that even though he's severed the femoral artery in his left leg, he hasn't bled out, when he could have done within just five minutes. As long as they get in there and repair it fast, he'll live. Before going into the operating room, it's time for Kevin to make a quick phone call.

That's when I called my mom, finally. And I told her, hey, I told her I got crushed by a huge boulder. And I didn't want her to worry because she lives all the way in New York. And I was in California, so it's across the whole country. And I told her like, hey, don't worry. I'm going to be fine. But I almost died. And she was like, all right, well, I'm coming out there right now.

The doctors have to work quickly and precisely to ensure he keeps all his limbs. When he awakes, Kevin finds out more about just how lucky he has been. I don't think it really hit me that I was going to like lose my leg or anything because they were trying to keep it on there, but they needed to fix the artery and make sure everything else turned out smooth. But it never really hit me until a couple of days later. Basically, this one doctor came in and he's like hey do you remember me and I would just say yes because I had seen so many people at that time but he's he could tell that I didn't really recognize him and he's like yeah I'm the guy

who saved your leg and I just like I broke down in tears I didn't even really know how to react to it emotionally I couldn't even believe it like I said if he didn't he wasn't able to save my leg it would have genuinely altered my lifestyle forever. And so I was extremely thankful. I basically broke down in tears. I couldn't even believe it. Now Kevin has to begin the long road back to fitness. It was very limiting for me because I couldn't walk for a really long time.

And it was a lot of effort to even just sit up in the hospital bed. And so when they first got me walking and everything like that, it was so difficult to even just take a few steps down the hallway without being winded. And I'm the guy that'll go out into the mountains and run like 30 miles in a day and come back and be fine. So it was extremely limiting to deal with all this. Kevin endures weeks of grueling physical therapy. in a day and come back and be fine. So it was extremely limiting to deal with all this.

Kevin endures weeks of grueling physical therapy. But gradually, he regains the ability to stand on his own two feet. When he walks out of hospital a few weeks later, he appears to be unchanged by his near-death experience. In fact, the incident has left him with a profoundly altered perspective. I was at sort of a crossroads when this happened. Like, not that I was down on my luck, but I was at a weird point in my life

where, like, I was making the transition between careers, and nothing was really certain. And it was just sort of a weird time in my life for this to happen at such a weird time and it gave me like a lot to reflect on and actually decide what I wanted to do and what in life was actually important and it sure wasn't what I was doing before. I mean it's all it's all fun to go out and explore and everything like that but there's more important things to life for sure. The search and rescue team they don't even get paid.

It's all volunteers. So they could have just been eating dinner with their family when they got the call to come out there and rescue me. But I was really inspired by all that. Even the doctors and nurses that do that every day just as a part of their job. No one ever really thanks them or tells them how much they're appreciated.

It's so inspiring. And I'd say that's probably like the most, it's like one of the most important things that you could do in this life is to help others. And then there's Josh, whose quick thinking kept Kevin alive. In the busy period after the accident, Kevin wasn't able to see his friend right away. Josh had his own life to get back to and his own experience to process. But as it happens, they've got plans to meet up very soon. I'm actually going to reunite with him within this next week. I haven't even seen him since the whole thing and I haven't been able to make it out there

yet. So we have a plan to meet up like within this next week. So I'm really excited to see him and we're going to go back up to the spa and everything. So that'll be the full revolution of this whole thing, is being able to just make peace with it. Next time on Real Survival Stories, we meet 29-year-old Dan Smith. While enjoying an idyllic midsummer's day in the wilderness of Washington State, a freak accident leaves his life literally hanging by a thread. Dangling upside down off a rock face 1, 1500 feet up, things are looking hopeless.

And even if Dan escapes this predicament, wild new dangers are just waiting to present themselves. That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen to Dan's story today without waiting a week by subscribing to Noisa Plus.