Real Survival Stories - Ravine Rescue: Canine Hero

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

Danelle Ballengee is an endurance athlete, an experienced trail-runner who knows the Utah backcountry like the back of her hand. But when a training run through the sandstone mesas goes disastrously wrong, she’s left immobile and incapacitated. Trapped in a ravine, there is just the faintest glimmer of hope. Danelle will come to realise that her loyal pooch, Taz, could offer a moonshot chance of survival… A Noiser production, written by Joe Viner. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started with a 7-day free trial. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Friday, December the 15th, 2006, in the early hours of the morning. The desert near Moab, in the state of Utah, is red rock country. It's one of the most stunning natural environments in all of North America.

By day, this unspoiled wilderness is a mecca for extreme sports enthusiasts, from mountain bikers to trail runners. But when the sun goes down, the canyon-filled expanse becomes extremely inhospitable. Nighttime temperatures can plummet as low as minus 18 degrees Celsius. Partway down a deep sandstone ravine, 35-year-old Danelle Belangi lies in the dusty earth, badly injured, helpless. Her breathing is labored, and she's freezing cold. Her feet are beginning to turn black from frostbite. A fresh wave of pain radiates from her shattered hip.

She needs medical attention, fast. But as far as she is aware, no one knows she's out here. Her chances of being rescued could hardly be slimmer. I tried not to think about the situation and how bad it was. I tried to think positive but as the night went on i started to lose hope and that's when i started to think okay i may not make it out of here danelle is trapped here inside this jagged gash in the earth's surface without a cell phone or any other means of calling for help but she she is not, in fact, alone. She glances over at her loyal companion, her dog, Taz.

Taz has been by her side throughout this ordeal. His presence has been a comfort amid the torment. But to make it out of here, Danelle will need more than comfort. She'll need a miracle. 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 danelle

belangi she's an endurance athlete an experienced explorer of the utah backcountry but when a training run through the moab desert goes disastrously wrong, Donnell is left immobile and incapacitated. There is just the faintest glimmer of hope. Stranded in the ravine, she'll come to realize that her canine companion could offer a moonshot chance of survival. Taz had made his

way to me and I thought, okay, if he can get here, then I can get out. And I thought to myself, I'm going to follow him. I'm going to follow him. I'm John Hopkins from Noisa. This is Real Survival Stories. Wednesday, December 13, 2006. In Moab, Utah, Danelle Belangi is at home answering emails. As she types, she glances out of the window.

The cloudless winter sky is enticingly blue. In the distance, stunning red sandstone escarpments rise above the rows of grey suburban rooftops. A sawtooth ribbon of white-capped peaks hangs along the horizon. Danelle doesn't live here in Moab full-time. Her primary residence is across state lines in Colorado. But she never tires of returning to this weird and wonderful landscape. Moab, Utah, is a place unlike anywhere else in the world. It's really unique.

The Colorado River runs through it and the canyons are just towering high, vertical red rock canyons. And surrounded by the canyons, there's really unique rock formations. It's like being in another world. I mean, I've heard somebody describe it as it's somewhere between reality and the other place. And I fell in love with just the uniqueness of the scenery

and just being in awe at the landscape. Danelle forces her eyes back to her laptop screen. But in her mind, she's already outside on the running trail. Running was always my strength. Running was something that I always fell back on and that I loved to do. The simplicity of it and the ability just to explore different terrain and to see different scenery. And to, you know, the simplicity of being able to go anywhere and just run and explore was what I loved about it.

Moab is a place of striking contrasts, of dry summers and snowy winters, of clear sunny days and punishingly cold nights. For an endurance athlete like Danelle, who competes across a range of disciplines, the seasonal climate and varied terrain makes this desert outpost the perfect place to train. I was preparing, looking forward to transitioning to the winter season, where I was hoping to do some cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. I had competed in the Winter Triathlon World Championships the year prior, and I was thinking that that might be fun to compete in again. Danelle is no ordinary competitor. She is one of the world's premier multi-sport athletes,

with a collection of gold medals to prove it. At 35 years old, with more than a decade of experience under her belt, she is at the absolute peak of her powers. To prepare for her upcoming winter triathlon, Danelle's been running high-elevation trails through the nearby canyons. That's her plan for this morning, but she can't wait to get going. And nor can her running partner, Taz. I had a dog. His name was Taz.

And he came with me everywhere I went. And he loved Moab, too. We tended to find a lot of the trails with waterways and creeks and stuff, but in the wintertime we would explore some of the higher elevations and some of the more unique landscapes with some of the different rock formations and exploring some new canyons and new canyon rims. Danelle lives alone with Taz. The three-year-old chestnut-colored pooch is more than just a pet.

He's a loyal companion. Given that she's only here for about a third of each year, Danelle doesn't have many close friends in Moab. Not that she minds. Her training occupies most of her free time, and Taz is all the company she needs. So that particular day, I got onto my laptop, completed a few emails, took off, swung by the Burger King, grabbed a quick little snack, and was planning to do a run of about, oh, nine or ten miles, sort of a mid-distance run. And it was in a location that I haven't been there a lot,

but I have done this run a couple times. And it's just a real beautiful area, and it's a loop. And so I was just looking forward to getting out there, doing a nice run, and then getting back to my business. Danelle makes the short journey from her home to the Amasa Back Trailhead. It's a popular mountain biking route. It's only half an hour out of town, but in these parts, 30 minutes can mean the difference between populated civilization

and complete, unspoiled wilderness. As she drives deeper into the backcountry, the last remaining signs of the man-made world recede to specks in the rearview mirror. She enters a landscape of red rock arches, soaring sandstone mesas, and plunging gullies forged by the flow of ancient rivers. But this environment also presents unique dangers, from rockfalls to poisonous plant life. Accidents occur all year round, but in the winter, the surfaces of the canyon rims are often slick with treacherous and transparent black ice. And there are no soft landings in this world of stone. Should a hiker slip and fall, the steep, craggy ravines can become death traps.

Anyone venturing into this environment is strongly advised to notify somebody of their whereabouts beforehand. But as she bumps along the desert roads, Danelle isn't worrying about the risks. She's more experienced than most. And besides, she's not alone. Danelle parks at the trailhead. As she climbs out of the car, her eyes swivel up to the cliffs that overhang this bend in the Colorado River. It's a bright morning, but a cool one. So she pulls on leggings, a base layer, and a thin fleece jacket. She's also wearing a small pack around her waist with a bottle of water zipped inside. To keep the weight to a minimum, she's not taking any food or extra clothing, just a few energy gels. Nor does she bring a mobile phone. There's no reception out in the

canyons, and besides, she'll only be gone for a couple of hours. Fully kitted up, Danelle sets off running, with Taz bounding along at her heels. For the first few miles, she follows an off-road jeep track. It's entirely empty, not a single vehicle or mountain bike in sight. She and Taz should have the whole trail to themselves. I didn't see any jeeps at the time because it was December. It's quiet in Moab due to the cooler weather. But from the jeep trail, there's a canyon. It's an unmarked canyon, and it branches off of the jeep trail. And that was my route, that I was heading up the canyon.

And it was kind of sandy, but not real. The sand was a little wet, so it was good and tacky, nice for running. And I just was jogging along, enjoying myself. About an hour into the run, Danelle arrives at an unmapped section of the loop. Less experienced runners might turn around here, but she doesn't hesitate. She climbs a steep slope towards a canyon rim. The ground here is made of slick rock, smoothed and grooved by the wind of a millennia. Despite its name, slick rock is typically quite grippy and easy for trail shoes to cling to.

But then, as Danelle clambers up the incline, her foot hits a patch of black ice. Black ice is not actually black ice, it's clear ice. It's like a thin layer of ice on the rock that you can't even see. And I was just kind of in the zone, just navigating my way through this section of the trail. And next thing I know, my foot starts slipping out from under me. It happens in the blink of an eye.

One moment she's comfortably navigating the steep terrain. The next, she loses all control. Then I realized that my other foot was slipping too, and I didn't have a grip of myself. I mean, I was falling. She skids down the slope towards a precipice. She scrambles in the loose shingle, trying to slow her fall. The problem was that the grade kept getting steeper and steeper, and I'm slipping fast. I did have time to process like, oh my gosh, you know, I've got to land this. I've got to land this. And I just sort of got myself in position to land like if you were jumping on a trampoline.

I used to ski a lot, and I would cliff jump off a ski. So I kind of knew how to land. And I just went in that mode. And I was trying to dig into the rock to stop or to slow myself down. But there was no stopping because it kept getting more and more vertical. Eventually it got, it was a sheer cliff. Like it was, I was basically airborne the last 20 feet of the, of the fall and boom, I landed. What's in this McDonald's bag? The McValue Meal. For $5.79 plus tax, you can get your choice of

junior chicken, McDouble or chicken snack wrap plus small fries and a small fountain drink. So pick up a McValue meal today at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. Prices exclude delivery. 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. Danelle lies crumpled on the hard ground she's motionless she's just dropped 60 feet in total

the equivalent of a two-story building but her heart is racing her blood is pumping her brain is bombarded with chemical signals from her body telling her i'm. First thing I thought to myself was, am I alive? Like, I just fell for a long ways. And I was like, okay, I'm alive. Danelle heaves herself up into a sitting position. Her hands tremble. She's in shock. She tries to take in her surroundings,

but her vision is tunneled and blurring at the edges. It takes a minute for her eyes to adjust. When they do, she sees that she is on a narrow shelf partway down the canyon. The ravine itself plunges much deeper. She realizes that landing on this slim slab was the difference between life and death. She calls out for Taz, but he's nowhere to be seen. Did he fall, too? A few feet away is a juniper tree. The soft soil where it's growing must have been what broke her fall.

And probably if I would have fell to the left or right of that little juniper tree, like where I landed in the soil, I probably wouldn't have made it. But the fact that I somehow landed on the little bit of soil, I was just so lucky, and I think that's part of the reason why I was able to live through the fall. Danelle may have ridden her luck, but her legs feel numb. She prods her thigh tentatively. Thankfully, she still has some sensation. She tries to stand up. And so I tried to stand up and walk out.

And that's when I realized something was wrong, because I couldn't get up. Like, my body would not allow me to stand up. I couldn't walk wrong because I couldn't get up. Like my body would not allow me to stand up. I couldn't walk. I couldn't even get, I couldn't even get up. I was, something was wrong. She may not be paralyzed, but after hitting the ground feet first, she's extremely badly injured. She isn't ready to contemplate the extent of her injuries right now. I had studied kinesiology and exercise physiology. I had taken anatomy classes. I should have known more what had happened to me and how bad it was.

But strangely, I was in shock and I didn't even think of that. I didn't even think, oh, this is what could have happened. This might be what happened I just I quickly just went on instinct which was to get out of there as an endurance athlete she's used to moving forward now her life depends on it she rolls onto her front and begins heaving herself across the rocky, dusty ground I kind of switched into this adventure racing mode Where you just keep moving forward in whatever way you can Making your way through the terrain Danelle makes agonizingly slow progress along the ledge

It hits her that if there's no way down into the canyon from here, she could be stuck on this shelf indefinitely. She tries her best to block out such morbid thoughts. The adrenaline is still masking the worst of the pain. At any moment, its numbing effects could start to wear off. But then she hears something that lifts her spirits. Taz bounds up to Donel and licks her face happily. She wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face in his soft, warm fur. On top of the relief that he brings and the company,

Taz's arrival has also confirmed something, that there must, in fact, be a way off this ledge. Taz had made his way to me, and I was worried about him because I didn't want him to fall. That was on my mind, like, I hope Taz is okay. And he had somehow found his way to me, which I thought, okay, if he can get here, then I can get out. And I thought to myself, I'm going to follow him because he's capable and he's probably going to find a way to get to the bottom of the canyon or at least a route that's doable to get off from that shelf with the cliffs. So I started dragging myself along the shelf following Taz.

Her years of competing at the highest level have been preparing her, physically and mentally, for this moment, the most difficult challenge she's ever faced. A lot of time in adventure races, we have to bushwhack through really rough, rugged terrain. And you've got to just keep moving. And that's what I was doing, even though I was down on the ground just dragging myself. I kept going, you know. I mean, that was something I had to focus on, was just an inch at a time, just keep going.

Taz runs ahead. Now and then he disappears. But he always comes lolloping back, head cocked to one side, as he tries to make sense of her slow progress. After almost five hours, Danelle reaches an especially arduous section. Here, the rocky ground slopes upward before leveling out. She simply doesn't have the strength to make it up the incline. It feels like she's run a marathon. In reality, she can't have traveled more than a quarter of a mile, and she's still at least five miles from where her car is parked. There's a puddle of melted snow nearby. Danelle refills her water bottle. It's already gone five o'clock.

The clouds are turning pink as the sun drops behind the mountains. Should she continue through the night or stop and rest? My knees were bleeding. My hands were bleeding from pulling myself across the ground, across the rocky terrain. And so I thought to myself, okay, it's getting dark. I'm going to just stay here and wait until I could see better when the sun comes up and hope that my body will heal up overnight and try to get up over this little rise so I could continue down

through the canyon and back to my car in the morning. As darkness descends across the desert, the temperature falls well below freezing. That night was so cold, and that was the prevailing thought on my mind. That was all I could think about. And so the only thing I could do to keep from basically freezing was to keep the blood flowing to keep uh to exercise and i couldn't exercise the only exercise i could do was sort of head crunches like little mini crunches again danelle's athletic training is coming in useful by contracting her core muscles she's converting stored energy into body heat,

warming herself internally and staving off hypothermia. It's a calculated risk. Too much exercise and she won't have enough energy reserves to rely on later, but too little and she'll freeze before dawn. I quickly realized that I couldn't do too many without getting tired, but I had to do enough to stay warm. So I sort of found this pace, this rate at which I could do crunches, and I did them all night long. Like, that was the only thing that I could do. It was on my mind just how cold it was, and I had to survive. So I just did crunches the entire night trying to stay warm and stay alive. Up above, the absence of light pollution means what seems like the whole of the Milky Way

is visible. But this is no time for stargazing. Danelle stares straight ahead, watching her breath form clouds of mist in the gloom. Taz is stretched out alongside her, his heightened senses alert to every sound and smell. Occasionally his ears prick up, and he bolts into the darkness to chase some critter, a cottontail snake or a skunk. And hopefully, nothing bigger. Moab is home to bobcats, even mountain lions, and they do most of their hunting after dark. The hours grind on. As the frost creeps across the ground, the sweat in Danelle's fleece jacket

slowly turns to ice. As she continues, the stomach crunches. Every so often, the shifting of broken bones unleashes a wave of agony. But she can cope with the physical suffering. It's the mental element that's proving the toughest obstacle. The frustration was the worst pain of all, being in this situation where I can't do anything. I mean, as an endurance athlete, I always can move forward, no matter the situation. We can move to get out of it or to keep moving forward or one step to the finish line. And suddenly I'm in this situation where I can't move at all. I'm completely stuck. Finally,

dawn arrives. The warmth of the sun, when it penetrates the depths of the canyon, breathes life back into Danelle's body. I mean, it took till probably 10 or 11 o'clock before the sun hit me,

but the warmth was so nice, just the warmth of the sun, because it was such a cold night. So I did have a little bit of relief, and I was like, okay, I can do this. I can get up this little hill, and I can get myself out of here. She takes a sachet of glucose gel from her waste pack and squeezes the cloyingly sweet liquid into her mouth. She'll need every scrap of energy for the task ahead.

The incline blocking her path, it's no more than a few feet high, but it might as well be Mount Everest. She plants her elbows into the dust and starts crawling forward. I tried to roll over, and I tried to get myself up that hill and I kept trying and I couldn't and then I would rest and take a sip of water and try again. I mean this went on for several hours where I was still like okay I gotta get I was determined to figure out a way to get up and over this hill and get out of there. I kept trying. The midday sun passes overhead before beginning its slow arcing descent behind the mountains.

The pain from her legs is almost unbearable now. She stops. The truth is unavoidable. If she's going to survive this ordeal, then she will need to rely on more than just her own spirit and strength. She needs help, and she needs it fast. The reality was I wasn't getting anywhere. I mean, I was, I couldn't, I was, the injuries were so bad that there was no way I was going to be able to get out

of there on my own. She yells until her throat burns, but her cries merely echo down the canyon. Thoughts turn to family and friends. Will anyone notice she's missing and alert the authorities? It's unlikely. I lived alone. I just had Taz, and he was there with me. I didn't have, I mean, I just had Taz and he was there with me. I didn't have any kids or a husband. I wasn't living with my parents.

I, you know, I didn't have a job where you show up and you go nine to five. You know, I didn't have a regular job. I kind of worked from home and I was an endurance athlete. This is what I do is I go out every day and do this kind of thing. So the reality was that there was nobody that was going to notice that I was missing. I mean, this was something that I do normally. I remember thinking to myself, I hope somebody notices that I haven't come home. You know, that when I left that day, I left the screen door open so that Taz could go in and out of the doggy door. I had left the blinds open in the house and the lights possibly on. I don't know.

I'd left the house, you know, like I was going to come back to it. I remember thinking, I hope somebody notices. But the reality was, I mean, who was going to notice? The odds were really slim. Danelle is on friendly terms with her neighbor, a woman called Dorothy. They try to keep an eye out for each other. But expecting Dorothy to report her missing just because the screen door was left open, it's exceedingly optimistic. Still, the Nell clings onto the hope. It's all she's got.

The next thing I know, it's dark again. Like, the whole day had gone by. I hadn't made it anywhere. You know, I was just still stuck in this same spot, in this same situation. I couldn't get up over this little hill. And I knew I was going to have to face the second night in that canyon. As darkness returns, another grueling test of body and mind lies in store. I knew if I was to go to sleep that I would die of hypothermia just because it was so cold.

I knew I had to stay awake. I had to keep doing the crunches. And I knew somebody had to find me. And I tried not to think about the situation and how bad it was. I tried to think positive. But with her physical condition fast deteriorating she knows she's walking a fine line between optimism and delusion i could actually feel around my midsection it felt like a jelly donut or like a you know it's just it was this soft sort of ring that was pooling. The blood was pooling around my midsection, and I could feel it there.

And I didn't know what it was at the time, but it was blood. I mean, I was bleeding internally. Internal bleeding is a common side effect of a shattered pelvis. Most people will die within eight hours unless they seek immediate medical attention. Remarkably, Danelle is still alive after almost 36 hours. I should have been dead. I shouldn't have been alive at that point.

I think what helped keep me alive was that it was so cold, even though the hypothermia almost killed me. I also think that just laying on that cold rock sort of slowed down the internal bleeding process a little bit. As the night wears on, her grip on reality gets looser and looser. I look at the stars in the sky and I would look at them and then I would move my head and then the stars would move afterwards.

There was like this delayed response, and I think it was because I didn't have enough blood supply to the brain due to the internal bleeding. She's fading, and if she loses consciousness, everything will be over. But a voice deep inside her tells her to keep fighting, insisting that now is not her time. That was the motivating factor was I was not ready to die. I hadn't lived my whole life. There was a lot more that I wanted to live for. I had tasks that I wanted to take care of. My family and friends became very important at that moment,

just being able to be with them and to tell them that I love them and to talk to them again. And then I still had, you know, I had dreams for the future. Like I wanted to have a family. I wanted to have kids. You know, I still had a lot of life to live.

I wasn't ready to die. So I knew that I had to survive. I gotta keep fighting here. I gotta stay alive. I gotta keep hopeful. Danelle makes it through that second night. Once again, morning sun cascades down the canyon wall, but even as she starts to warm up, she knows the clock is still ticking.

If anything, her internal bleeding will speed up now. She probably only has a few hours left to live. Slowly she turns her head towards Taz. He's looking at her with wide eyes, as if he knows it too. I mean, Taz came with me everywhere I went. If I would go kayaking, he would come out and run along the shore, run out to the boat with me. Everywhere I went running, he would come along. Like, if I would go to the store he would come with me like I knew he wasn't didn't want to leave me but my only hope was Taz. For the duration of this nightmare Taz has been a source of immense comfort

but now he might be more than that he might be her last chance. almost like, you know, you'd communicate with a human. Okay. And he sort of turned his head to each side, and then he just gave me this look in his eyes, and then he turned and left. The dog bounds off, ears pinned flat against his head. He disappears around a bend in the canyon. Could Taz really understand her? It certainly felt like he did. Either way, Danelle is now alone. Really alone.

Time drags on and on. Things are getting more and more desperate by the minute. I felt like I had almost crossed that line between being dead and being alive. I was in that zone there, and it was a pretty dark time for me. I was a lot of reflection and thinking about my past and my future and my life. But then, Danelle hears a familiar noise. The rhythmic thump of Taz's paws, and I was happy to see him, but also sad, because I wasn't, I was about to die. Like, what was Taz going to do? And he licked my face. He licked the tears off my face.

Her last ditch attempt to send Taz for help has failed. He has come back to keep her company. And with this bittersweet reunion, Danelle's fate is sealed. Taz starts lapping from the puddle of melted snow that has helped sustain her for the past 48 hours. He's finishing off the last of her water supply. But at this point, why stop him? Taz came and started drinking from my drinking that last bit of water and I was just like you know losing hope but the funny thing was his demeanor changed like he he

just had this like happy puppy and I was sort of like okay like hopefully he'll be okay because he's just a happy puppy right now then I I started to hear this sound. I was like, I was like, wait. And then I got this surge of adrenaline because I was starting to, I was actually starting to die with the blood loss. I was starting to lose it. But when I heard this, I got some adrenaline and I sort of came back to life at that moment. And the sound kept getting closer and closer. Danelle, it seems, is experiencing a phenomenon known as terminal lucidity. A sudden clarity that can come in a person's last moments.

And in this strange, heightened gray zone between life and death, she hears the unmistakable sound of footsteps. She cranes her neck, not yet convinced that she isn't dreaming. But then, a moment later, she makes up the blurry shape of a man running towards her. And then I just started begging for help. And he said, I'm here for you. And I knew, like, that was the best moment of my life. Like, I knew I was going to make it then. Like, I went from the worst moment of my life, like, where I was thinking I was going to make it then. Like I went from the worst moment of my life, like where I was thinking I was, I was going to die. I didn't think I would get to make it to like,

okay, I've got a second chance now. I'm going to live. This is my, you know, this is the best moment of my life because I was going to make it. I was going to get a chance for more life and to do the things I had thought about that I wanted to do and just to be able to have more opportunities to be on earth and to live more. While the bearded face of her rescuer looms above, Taz lies alongside her, his head laid gently across her chest. I mean, I love dogs, but at the same time, you know're dogs they're not humans and you just don't think that they have these qualities that humans have but they do like now I know that they do and I feel like he was very deliberate in his actions I feel like he completely understood what what he needed to do he did it at the right time and he did the

right thing and he he they have a way of communicating and it's it's amazing she reaches out to gently pat her four-legged friend he may just have saved her life. She'll have to wait to find out exactly how he did it. Danelle is stretched out of the canyon and airlifted to hospital in the city of Grand Junction in Colorado. There, doctors manage to administer an emergency transfusion in the nick of time. She has already lost a third of her own blood to internal bleeding. They immediately got me on blood and the doctor there looked at my pelvis and was like, I don't know what to do with this. And my feet were frostbite. They were black. Both feet were black from the cold.

But there was definitely a discussion of me having to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair, which I was okay with because I was just so happy to be alive. I mean, when you think you're going to die and then you live, like, anything is fine. And so I was okay with it. But after being treated by a pelvic specialist, Danelle will recover. And as she recuperates in hospital, she pieces together the incredible series of events that led to her rescue from the canyon. Scrolling back a few hours, Danelle's neighbor, Dorothy, is the first to notice that something is wrong. When she sees that Danelle has left her blinds open and the lights on, Dorothy gets worried. And so she called

my parents and my parents had that parental instinct where something's not right. They, somehow they knew something wasn't right. Even though this was, you know, I would I would come and go a lot like I would go out and do trainings. I was off to do races on the weekends. I would go to different areas to explore and to do my training. So it wasn't unusual for me to be gone for a couple of days. Somehow they knew Parents know. And so they called the police and put out a missing person report. And the interesting thing is that as they're calling the police, there was a gentleman named Craig Shumway, and he's a detective. And he overheard this conversation. And he knew me. As chance would have it, Danelle and Detective Shumway have crossed paths before. When she had issues with a former tenant and had to get the cops involved. And he heard the call come through and was like, something in him was like, wait, I know this person.

I feel like I need to do something to find this person. Knowing that she's a runner, Detective Shumway drives out to every trailhead in the area, checking to see if the Nell's vehicle is parked there. He works his way methodically through each location. Eventually, he arrives at the Amasa Back Trailhead. And sure enough, my truck was there. Somehow my neighbor knew to call, somehow my parents knew to call, and somehow Craig overheard this and knew to go to this place. All three things were a miracle. So he found my truck and called search and rescue. And that's when the search began.

But even with the search underway, the odds of finding Danelle alive are still a thousand to one. That's when Taz comes to the rescue. He knew I needed help, and he left. And he went and tried to get help. And he tried to run home, back to the house. I guess that's where he thought that he could find help. But on the way, he happened to spot the search team. And they actually tried to catch him. Because they thought that it was a loose dog,

and they were going to try to catch him, and he wouldn't let them catch him. He's like, they're not catching me. He was on a mission to do what he was going to do, and so they couldn't catch him, and finally, one of the people from the search team was like, does she have a dog? And they were like, maybe.

They didn't know, but then they're like, follow the dog. Just whatever you do, follow the dog. Wherever he goes, follow the dog. And that's exactly what the search party do. Taz leads them straight to his owner. After leaving hospital, Danelle goes through an extensive rehab program. It takes a long time, but she works her way back to full fitness. I basically treated my rehab like training as a professional endurance athlete. You know, I just, I came up with a plan.

I executed it. Every day I did what exercises I could and just slowly progressed. And eventually I was back running, doing adventure races, getting out with Taz every day on the trails. Not the same as I was before, but still really good just to get out there and do what I love to do. She is soon back to her old ways, pushing her body to the limit and enjoying the life that was so nearly snatched from her. As for Taz...

Taz passed away when he... He made it to 17 years old, and I miss him so much. But I've got... I've got two more dogs, and they get me out every day to run. He is gone, but not forgotten. Taz has passed into Moab folklore. The story will forever be associated with the canyon that now bears his name, Taz's Canyon. It's Taz's Canyon.

It's a beautiful canyon. And yeah, after what he did, he deserves to have it named after him. Stuck in the ravine at her darkest moment, Danelle had imagined the life she'd be missing out on were she to perish. Now she'll go on to start a family of her own. moment, Danelle had imagined the life she'd be missing out on were she to perish. Now, she'll go on to start a family of her own. I've got two boys. They are age 12 and 14 now, and they're amazing. They're my life now. And they are athletes themselves, and they play soccer. I'm their soccer coach. They also play basketball. I coach their basketball team. And they keep me running.

Like, I got to keep up with the boys. They're both starting to run cross-country. I wasn't able to talk them into it. I had to sort of let them do it on their own. And I'm happy that they're getting into it. I'm just so grateful that I'm here and that I made it through and that I get to raise these two boys and that I get to explore

and be part of life. I feel really lucky. In the next episode, we meet John Waddell, a 60-year-old prospector from Arizona. He takes his life in his hands when he explores an ancient, abandoned gold mine. His curiosity will lead him into a living nightmare and to the brink of despair. Trapped 100 feet below the surface of the earth, can anyone find him before it's too late? And as the daylight fades, what unseen dangers lurk in the darkness? That's next time on Real Survival Stories.