Real Survival Stories - Ultrarunning Accident: One False Step…

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

In Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains, Gabe Joyes hits the trails in preparation for an upcoming ultramarathon. But a single innocuous stumble sees his run take a deadly turn. With his life literally slipping through his fingers, Gabe needs to act lightning fast to stand any chance of pulling through… A Noiser production, written by Chris McDonald. 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

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. It's around 2 p.m. in Wyoming on Sunday, May 22, 2022. In Sinks Canyon State Park, an icy wind blows through the valleys. It whips past limestone cliffs, over rolling whitewater rapids, and up towards the peaks of the Wind River Mountains. Ancient evergreens line the rough climbing trails. They sway, bending in the breeze. On an exposed ridgeline, a few pine cones bounce along a rutted track,

rolling right up to 36-year-old Gabe Joys, who is lying where he fell. Gabe is shivering violently, his numb fingers clutching his right thigh. His chin and cheeks are smeared with blood. Dried flecks are smattered across his running vest, too. But his shirt and shorts are soaked through, dyed a shocking crimson. He's just about managed to stem the bleeding. But for how long for a moment gabe's thoughts drift from the pain in his leg to the ache in his lower back the stone is digging

into it but when he tries to shift his body slightly another gush of blood erupts from his wound i was so angry with myself. I was like, you idiot. You couldn't just handle a rock on your back. Like, this has cost you who knows how much blood just because you were a little bit uncomfortable. So, like, really upset with myself for being so short-sighted about a rock on my back compared to, like, the long-term goals of, like,

hey, you need to get home tonight. He glances around at the narrow trail and the towering trees beyond. compared to like the long-term goals of like hey you need to get home tonight he glances around at the narrow trail and the towering trees beyond he's run this track countless times before and he knows just how little footfall it gets it's unlikely someone is going to stumble upon him even though his car is only parked a mile and a half away gabe's not going anywhere. I had had like a few short thoughts of like, maybe I could crawl somewhere. I was like 99% sure that was not a reality. And by moving six inches or whatever it was,

and having blood come out, I was like, well, definitely not moving anywhere else. Like I am stuck right here. Gabe shivers again. The sky is a foreboding gray and the temperature's dropping. He needs help. Fast. 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 teacher and running coach Gabe Joys. With an ultramarathon on the horizon and a free day to hit the trails, he seizes the opportunity to get up into the mountains. He runs the quiet tracks most days and knows them like the back of his hand. But when he takes an innocuous stumble, his run takes a deadly turn.

With his life literally slipping through his fingers Gabe needs to think fast to stand any chance of pulling through I can see this blood coming out out of my leg pulsing with each beat of my heart and I remember thinking people die from stuff like this and wow I like I have to do something here I need some help. And then realizing right away that no one's going to help me. I'm John Hopkins from Noisa. This is Real Survival Stories. 9 a.m. on Sunday, May 22, 2022. In Lander, Wyoming,

Gabe pulls into the parking lot of Sinks Canyon State Park. The towering spires of rock, tree-lined slopes, and crisp air have been a constant, reassuring presence in his life. As well as being a teacher, Gabe is also an athlete

for the Scarpa International Team. It means he gets to travel the world, competing in ultramarathons. With its narrow paths and sharp elevation, Six Canyon is the perfect place to train. The fact that it is practically on Gabe's doorstep is a huge bonus. Usually he has to fit his training around his family life. His wife Jenny is also a strong runner and his two young daughters keep him on his toes. But with the girls away on a camping weekend, Gabe is free to hit the trails. In five weeks time, he is due to fly off to Italy for a 75-mile race, Lavorredo Ultramarathon in the Dolomites.

Most of his training is already done, but a few extra miles in the lakes today surely can't hurt. Gabe knows his body well. At this point, he needs to take it relatively easy and manage fatigue. He plans his route accordingly. And so I purposely set up this run where I actually never got too far from my car. I was planning on doing, if I remember right, three different loops.

I would do basically like a 10-mile loop, come back to my car, refuel with some water and some snacks, and then go do another 10-mile loop. That was kind of the plan for the day. You know, there's always, there's risk in life in everything we do. And so these trails are full of rocks. There's rocks, there's cliffs, the terrain's rugged in that sense. If you're not careful, you certainly could have a fall. I think particularly in Wyoming and in the Rocky Mountains, weather can change really quickly. It's really easy to get overheated and dehydrated just shockingly fast. It's also really easy to get

way too cold and hypothermic really quickly as well. So those are risks people face. It's just a little above freezing, but Gabe knows that up on the exposed ridges and clifftops, it'll be even colder. Although he'll keep warm by running, he pulls on his windproof jacket and shoves another light raincoat into his backpack. He also packs some snacks and a bottle of water, and his phone. The cell service in Sinks Canyon is notoriously patchy, but it's better to be prepared. Gabe sets off at an easy pace. When he reaches a sharp incline, he searches in his pack for his trekking poles. There's no sign of them. He must have left them in the car. He makes a mental note to pick them up at the end of his first loop.

He needs to practice with them for Italy. As he climbs, Gabe half-jogs, half-hikes, even scrambling over some sections of scree. It's exhilarating. At the summit, he stops to catch his breath and savor the view. Below him, a glimmering river sneaks through the forest of Douglas firs and limber pines, before disappearing into Lander Valley. Looming up all around him are the snowy Wind River Mountains. It's an incredible vista.

After a moment or two, Gabe begins his descent. But despite his meticulous planning, his first 10-mile loop doesn't go quite to plan. He finds his path is blocked by some unwelcoming Wyoming wildlife, forcing him to amend his route. There was this mother moose with her calf and they looked kind of aggressive. Like they weren't happy to see me.

So I let them be. I took kind of a different route. And so I think I finished my first loop and it ended up being close to 20 miles. And so I was maybe a little bit more tired than I'd kind of planned on when I got back to my car and refueled. And so then I kind of adjusted. I was like, OK, well, maybe I'll do one more loop now. That's more like 11 or 12 miles. And it should all add up to about 30 something like that it's around 11 30 a.m when gabe sets off from the car park on his second loop this time

with his trekking poles tethered to his backpack he maintains the same easy pace the weather has improved and it's now cool but comfortable, even a little humid. As the miles pass, sweat rolls down his face and back, but he's still feeling good as he reaches the last big incline of the loop, his favorite in Sinks Canyon, Fairfield Hill. He pulls out his trekking poles. The incline has an elevation of around a thousand meters, but Gabe tackles it with gusto. At the summit, he considers stopping to take a few photos, but the wind is harsh. Shivering, he hurriedly pulls on his thin jacket. No time to hang about. He'd usually stow away his trekking poles before tackling the downhill,

but that is easier said than done. I had kind of finished my last big climb and maybe had five or six miles to go. I was done using my poles, but I was up at a pretty high point where it was especially windy and especially cold, and so I had put on my wind jacket over my running pack. And so since I had my jacket over my running pack, I didn't have anywhere to tuck away my poles.

And so I thought, well, you know, it's just all downhill here to my car for a little bit. Like, I'll just keep them in my hands. From the director of The Greatest Showman comes the most original musical ever. I want to prove I can make it. Prove to who? Everyone. So, the story starts.

Better Man, now playing in select theaters. With TD Direct Investing, new and existing clients could get 1% cash back. Great! That's 1% closer to being part of the 1%... Maybe, but definitely 100% closer to getting 1% cash back with TD Direct Investing. Conditions apply. Offer ends January 31, 2025. Visit td.com slash DI offer to learn more. It's around 1pm. The descent is challenging. It's steep, with loose rocks underfoot. Gabe keeps a good pace, slowing slightly when he needs to.

Then, after a couple of miles, the path starts to level out. I remember thinking like, great, I did it. I made it through that part, and I purposely kind of opened up my stride a little bit to lengthen out my stride and was just kind of like moving faster, but not like a reckless sprinting downhill sort of way, but sort of just like almost in the way that someone might start to accelerate towards the finish line of a race. So I was like, all right, cool. I got this.

It's all downhill from here. It's easy. You know, like you can see how I mentally let my guard down a little bit. It's a moment of distraction that proves to be his undoing. Gabe catches his toe on a rock and stumbles forward. Before he realizes what's going on, he's airborne. So when I kicked this rock, I remember just flying forward, like almost like Superman kind of stuff, you know? And I just remember I

very really remember as I'm flying through the air kind of everything kind of slow motion and thinking to myself I hope this doesn't hurt too bad on average Gabe takes a bad fall maybe three or four times a year it's an occupational hazard as a trail runner. All you can do is grit your teeth and take what's coming. Hopefully nothing worse than a grazed knee or a bloody elbow. But as soon as Gabe lands face down on the ground, he knows that this time it's different.

There wasn't like one specific point of pain. I mean, I felt like my body had exploded from head to toe. Every pain receptor in my body felt like it was going off. It was terrible. As soon as I hit the ground, I remember thinking inside my head, I'm not okay, I'm not okay. I knew something was really wrong. Like that level of pain is something

I had never experienced before. Wincing, Gabe manages to roll over onto his back. The source of his pain quickly becomes apparent. His shorts are already covered in blood, pouring from a wound in his upper right thigh. I think my eyes just about popped out of my head because I could see blood coming out of me, like pulsing out of me,

like doing the squirting with each beat of my heart, which was absolutely shocking to put it mildly. Gabe is squeamish at the best of times. He'll often feel faint while having a routine blood test. For a few seconds, he just stares in horror at the injury. Through the confusion, he tries to understand what on earth happened. Then he sees it. His trekking pole lying in the dirt beside him, the metal tip stained red. It didn't take long for me to figure out, like, oh, that's what got me. That's why this hurts so bad and why I have such a horrible problem.

So I had come down with the full force of my body weight, a six-minute mile pace, plus the force of gravity. All of that landed on this one sharp metal point. Instinctively, Gabe puts his hand to his leg, but he's unsure what exactly to do. I remember staring and thinking for a second, people die from stuff like this.

And then like, ah, I need some help. And then realizing right away, whoa, no one is going to help me here for like a long time. I was very aware, no one's going to help me. I'm in a really remote spot. It's rugged terrain. It's very difficult to get to.

And so I knew right away that I was going to have to figure out how to help myself. Gabe lies on his back, pain coursing through his body, blood pooling around him. He tries to marshal his thoughts. Whatever he's going to do, he needs to do it fast. So when I had that initial thought, like this is the sort of thing that people die from,

I was then aware that I had some time, but not a lot of time. If I could just slow the bleeding down, I knew I had a little bit more time, but again, who knows how much. And so right away, I knew I was in the business of buying myself time. From the recesses of his memory, he tries to recall the wilderness first aid course he took almost 15 years ago. Amazingly, it comes rushing back. Plug the wound, stop the bleeding.

The first thing I did was I knew you had to put pressure on the wound. Stop the bleeding. The first thing I did was I knew you had to put pressure on the wound. And I just absolutely jabbed my fingers into this hole in my leg. So right where my thigh meets my pelvis, that's where this puncture was. And so I went to put pressure on the wound. I was disgusted and shocked and horrified to find a hole in my leg. So it wasn't just like a spot to put pressure, but actually put two to find a hole in my leg. So it wasn't just like a spot to put pressure, but actually put two fingers in this hole in my leg. People are familiar with like preparing, you know,

some ground beef or raw meat or a roast for Sunday dinner. It felt like that. It was raw meat, but it was my own leg. Next, Gabe tries to elevate his head and legs. Summoning his courage and keeping pressure on the wound, he shuffles towards the edge of the trail until his feet are resting up on the verge. He then crosses his legs. This should help slow the blood loss and reduce the chances of him going into shock.

But it's not as effective as he hoped. Ribbons of crimson are still streaming through his fingers at an alarming rate. Some of the body's major blood vessels run along the inside of the thigh, including the femoral artery. If that is severed, a victim can bleed out in as little as five minutes. I was not having much luck at all with putting pressure on the wound without slowing the blood flow. I could still just feel it pulsating out. I took off my wind jacket that I had been wearing. And so I took that and shoved it in the hole, hoping that its water resistance would help keep in some of the blood a little bit more than just my fingers.

And that helped. Pressing down on the jacket gabe has bought himself some time a tourniquet would be another option to stem the bleeding and it might give him greater mobility but given how high the wound is on his thigh he can't imagine how he'd create one even if he did have bandages or something similar to hand, which he doesn't. In any case, fiddling around with bits of material means using his hands, which means releasing pressure on the wound, which seems like a bad idea. He's stuck.

But still, Gabe manages to remain calm. In fact, he's surprised by his own composure. Everything was very calculated and methodical and very matter-of-fact. I was emotionally detached from the situation because emotion wasn't going to help me survive. Emotion wasn't going to help me problem-solve. This wasn't a conscious thought, right?

But lying there in the dirt and kicking and screaming and crying and saying, woe is me, that doesn't help stop bleeding. That doesn't get help to come, right? That's not going to get me home to my family. With the wound plugged as well as possible with the jacket, Gabe's next priority is to raise the alarm. Gingerly, he manages to shrug off his backpack. Using his teeth, he opens the zipper.

For a split second, he takes one hand off the jacket, reaching into the bag to grab his phone. Every single movement must be efficient. Then, with some apprehension, he unlocks the phone screen. In Sinks Canyon, it is common for there to be zero cellular service at all because there's like mountains and canyons. And where I was, I knew it wasn't a great spot for phone service. And I hadn't even like began to problem solve yet.

Like, what would I do if I don't have any service? But Gabe is in luck. There, on the screen, flash two bars of signal, just enough to make a quick call. But rather than dial 911, Gabe decides to phone Jenny, his wife. As a fellow runner, she'll understand exactly where he is. He knows he can trust her to get him the help he needs.

He puts the phone to his ear, praying that she answers. Hello? When she does, mild-mannered Gabe is unusually brusque. I was very much like, hey, don't freak out and just listen carefully. This is my situation. I have an arterial bleed. It's bleeding fast. I need you to call search and rescue. This is where I am. I need you to get me help as quickly as possible. And basically left it at that and said, call me back when you can.

Jenny is clearly shocked. But Gabe reassures her and repeats the important details. She takes it all down and promises to call back soon. Now all he can do is wait. When Gabe hangs up, he suddenly notices how cold he is. It's maybe four or five degrees Celsius, probably less with the wind chill. But he also knows that feeling cold is one of the first signs of shock after massive blood loss.

He manages to pull his other jacket from his pack, but he can't find a way to put it on, not while keeping adequate pressure on the wound. The best he can do is lay it over himself like a blanket. Ten minutes later the phone rings. It's Jenny. Search and rescue are on their way, and she's going to stay in contact with them. Thank goodness. Gabe rings off and dials 911 himself, just to emphasize the urgency, to clarify his location, and confirm any other details. The dispatcher greets him, but almost immediately the voice starts breaking up.

Gabe glances at the phone screen. He watches the two bars of signal blink, then disappear. My phone service was gone. I didn't have any more phone service the rest of the time I was there. When I knew that my wife, Jenna, was going to be calling me back, and she was not going to get an answer, I had this, like, oh, i just felt so bad i just knew exactly what that would make her think and that was a hard moment to just know what that was going to be

putting her through worse still the search and rescue team now can't contact gabe to confirm his location or offer medical advice hopefully jenny's description is enough. Focusing on what he can control, Gabe glances down at his leg. The jacket plug seems to be holding, but the blood is still coming through slowly. Not in giant spurts like before, but it is seeping into the material. How long can he wait like this? I was like, yeah, this is going to be a while. Like, this is not going to go as quick as I'd like it to. And I was 100% aware of that.

And so I knew that very much the next challenge there was going to be staying patient and finding a way to be patient. Because, again, losing my head and throwing a tantrum, not going to help, not going to make time speed up. So knowing that that's going to take time and then kind of wondering, I wonder how much time I've got. Gabe tries to think of what else he can do to improve his chances. Another piece of wilderness first aid training pops into his head. A great way to slow the bleeding is like slow your heart rate, right? So if the if the blood was coming out with each beat of the heart is like,

okay, I'm gonna see if I can slow my heart rate down. And so I like relaxed, I was like, doing like breathing exercises, closing my eyes, just trying to slow my heart down and calm everything down as much as possible. 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 1.30 p.m., about half an hour since the accident. Gabe's breathing exercises are interrupted by an intermittent beeping. It's his watch, his smile and eat alarm. It's set to go off every 40 minutes while he's running

to remind him to relax and refuel. The simple act of smiling has actually helped Gabe through some tough times before. There's all sorts of research that whether, whether you're happy or not, just putting your face in that smile posture, just doing it sends all sorts of good signals to the brain and it makes you feel better, even if you don't really feel that great at all.

And so I'd been laying there for a while already. I don't know how long, but I've been there a while. And my smile and eat alarm goes off. And so I had to have a chuckle at that. I was like, I remember doing a big, like cheesy, sarcastic smile, like, here it is. So even though I was laying there, like, you know, bleeding to death,

I had a big old smile and had to laugh at my situation just a little bit. 1.50 PM. Half an hour since Gabe spoke to Jenny. What's taking so long? He checks and re-checks his phone. Still no signal. To distract himself, Gabe navigates to the camera app. He slaps a few selfies. In the photographs, blood coats his chin and cheeks. His vest, shorts, and jacket are all dyed dark red. He hopes these alarming images

are just for posterity, to marvel at once all this is over. Next, he snaps one of the view, his favorite in the park. I looked around. I was like, oh yeah, what a beautiful place this is. This is great.

I was like, oh, this is really terrible, but like pretty good spot for this to happen, I guess. Like, I'm like, not a bad place to hang out for a while. I was right below like one of my favorite peaks and I was enjoying that. And, you know, really trying to get in touch, like be in the moment, be in the moment, but in the most positive way I possibly can. But his positive outlook starts to falter as the wind picks up again.

It buffets his makeshift blanket, threatening to tear it away. His teeth are chattering. Soon his whole body is shaking. He curses not having his emergency thermal blanket. He used it recently after a race and forgot to repack it. The one time he truly needs it, and it's sat at home. Thoughts of hypothermia, of going into shock, play on his mind.

His fingertips are numb, and his hands are stiff and cramping. He's struggling to maintain pressure on the wound. The verge that his feet are resting on, if he can shuffle under it, might offer some protection from the wind. He's also fed up with the sharp rock that's stabbing into his back. He's been lying on it this whole time. Cautiously, Gabe tries shimmying over. And I tried shifting and moving just a little bit and I also felt this warm gush of blood all over my legs. Just this little bit of movement.

Just that little bit of movement was enough to not have the pressure how it should be. And I was so angry with myself. I was like, you idiot. This cost you who knows how much blood just because you were a little bit uncomfortable. Like, so like really upset with myself for being so short-sighted.

Gabe clutches at his jacket, pushing down with all his strength. Gradually the bleeding slows. His watch alarm goes off again. Another 40 minutes must have passed. Kind of have these feelings of like, don't know how much longer I can do this. I remember just for the sake of it, yelling help, being like 100% sure no one's going to hear me. I'm like, there's nobody else out here. It's windy. My voice will be just carried off to nowhere. But it just kind of, again, going through this like mindset of like what else can i do but just as his nerve is failing gabe hears something

from far below the distant whale of a siren an ambulance it's probably in the car park, just 500 feet below him. He just needs to hang on a little longer. The relief is overwhelming. But as his survival mentality begins to relax, Gabe is hit with conflicting emotions. I felt a sense of like almost guilt, almost disappointment of all the people I knew I was affecting by laying there and in this situation, all the people that had been going about their Sundays,

but instead they were having to worry about rescue me and just all the drama that I was created and just being embarrassed by that. I didn't want all that attention. I didn't want to affect people in that way. And that was a bit of a low moment for me. Still, better a local news story than an obituary. Gabe looks around once more at the mammoth peaks, the soaring tree line, and the dark clouds in the sky. Any minute now, he'll be safe. It's sometime after 2pm, about an hour and a half since the accident,

and still there's no sign of the paramedics or a search and rescue team. Gabe's strength is fading. If he passes out, he won't be able to keep pressure on his leg. Perhaps Jenny's instructions were misunderstood. What if they're looking for him in the wrong place? Finally, Gabe hears something. He strains his ears. Barely audible beyond the constant

groan of the wind is the low grumble of an engine. Hopefully, they're keeping their eyes peeled. He's lying right in the middle of a track, just below the crest of the hill, but out of sight from the other side.

So I did have this moment of like, oh, I hope they're not driving too fast because like they could literally run me over and that would just, you know, sometimes you have this mindset of like, oh, this couldn't get any worse. I was thinking, oh no, this could get worse. A small off-road vehicle comes bouncing over the hill.

Thankfully it stops in plenty of time. Gabe had imagined a team of rescuers dressed in high-vis leaping to his aid, rushing to tend to his wounds. But the reality is a little different. A solitary man hops off the vehicle and comes over. His name is Dave. He explains that he is a local search and rescue volunteer who just happened to be in the area when he received the alert.

He then apologizes, explaining somewhat sheepishly that he hasn't got any supplies with him. He wasn't planning on rescuing anyone today. And so he had little to no idea where I was, just went out and started looking around for me. And so I felt so bad for him, actually. He was so embarrassed when he showed up. He didn't have his first aid kit with him.

But interestingly, that didn't bother me in the slightest because at that point, my thoughts were more overwhelmed by the hypothermia than I was actually the bleeding. I was just out of my mind cold. Dave runs back to his vehicle. He returns holding an old tarp that his dog usually lies on. He wraps it around Gabe as tight as he can. While the patient warms up, Dave assesses the wound. He tells Gabe to continue applying pressure himself rather than them swapping over.

That would risk restarting the bleed. Then he grabs his radio and calls in the cavalry. So there's a helicopter waiting only probably like six miles from where I was, but they, they apparently didn't want to go fly the helicopter unless they had my exact coordinates. Something about my plan of my wife relaying exactly where I was didn't work out quite as I envisioned apparently.

And so he was able to relay the coordinates to the crew in the helicopter. And he said, they'll be here in a few minutes. We're just going to hang out. Dave reassures Gabe and rubs his shoulders, spreading warmth through his body. That was awesome. And just to have someone to talk to and just not be alone in my head, you know,

I estimate I probably laid there for about an hour and 20 minutes, which is, you know, that's a, that's a long time to be alone with your thoughts in that sort of situation. So to have the comfort of another warm, friendly, kind human being, and then to have that tarp over me, that was fantastic. Soon enough, the sound of propellers comes thrumming up through the valley. The moment the helicopter touches down, the doors fly open and two paramedics jump out, kicking off a flurry of action just as Gabe imagined. Or rather, almost as he imagined. It's kind of funny. I remember almost having to like chuckle in my head thinking like Here I was as soon as these EMTs showed up thinking my problems are over my problems were solved and it really it just got More and more miserable as they as they were doing all this work on me

They came over me like whip this tarp off me this lady takes these scissors Slices my shorts right off me. I was like, okay, here we go. And pulls my hand out of the wound and just jams her hand with some gauze into this hole in my leg. And it, it might've been more painful in the fall. Like the pressure she put on the wound was unbelievable. Absolutely just like lit me up with pain. The EMT tells him that the medication is on the way, but first there's one more job to do. They had these enormous needles. I mean, needles is even hardly like the right word for them.

They're like rods. They were going to put my arms to prepare for like a blood transfusion. When they were putting those in, that was also excruciatingly painful. So here I was expecting all this like help and everything's going to be okay. And these people, I felt like they were torturing me, just absolutely torturing me. But with the needles securely inserted into Gabe's arms, he's finally given some pain relief. I don't know what it was that they gave me.

I just remember like slowly fading out of reality and things becoming like sort of dreamlike and pixelated. And I was like very vaguely aware what was going on, but I wasn't in any pain anymore. I remember the sensation of being picked up and like walked towards the helicopter. During the flight, Gabe's world spins and blurs. When one paramedic asks him how he's doing, he replies that he feels like melting ice cream. The tinny laughter that follows confuses him for a moment. The helicopter touches down at the hospital in Casper, Wyoming,

where Gabe is rushed into the emergency room. Following surgery, Gabe is released from hospital after just 24 hours. Turns out he was actually incredibly fortunate in more ways than one. Along with torn muscles in his thigh and leg, he did puncture a major blood vessel, but he missed the femoral artery by a whisker. And while he lost a lot of blood, in the end, he didn't need a transfusion. A fact that comes as a surprise to all concerned. As an endurance athlete, it seems Gabe's volume of red blood cells is far higher than average. Or at least it was. Though he's discharged quickly, he feels very weak. In the days that follow,

even getting into the shower is an ordeal. Taking a few steps feels like a marathon. But it doesn't take him long to ramp things up again. I think it was maybe a week, week and a half afterwards. I tried going for a walk with my daughter. I walked a quarter mile or so, you you know a couple hundred meters to the top of this hill and i remember i had even this feeling of just like triumph i felt like i conquered my own everest soon gabe starts running again and his fitness returns even quicker than he hoped after just a couple of weeks, he's almost pain-free Buoyed by these milestones, high on life

And feeling thankful to have avoided a grim fate in Sinks Canyon Another week or so later, Gabe starts on trails again Soon, an outrageous thought starts to take shape On the last weekend of June, little more than a month after his near-death experience, Gabe boards a plane to Italy. There's no chance of him competing in the official 75-mile Lavaredo race as planned,

but what he does instead feels like an even greater achievement. I was able to run the La Verita race course over the course of three days, so it was about 25 miles a day. And I don't talk about that very often, but of all the different running things I've done, of the races I've done in fastest known times, and I have some accomplishments I'm really proud of I might be as much or more proud about those three days than anything I've

ever done in my life because the fact that I even attempted to run 25 miles much less like three days in a row I looking back in hindsight like it's ridiculous. I had no business doing that. I was so anemic. I was still really low on blood. I had these muscles that barely functioned. But I just, for some reason, had this dogged determination to just kind of be like, here, I'm alive. I can do these things. I'm more confident than ever that you do have the opportunity to choose your attitude in any situation.

I believe that there is always something positive that you can choose to put your attention on. I believe that you absolutely should enjoy each day for whatever it is. And of course some days are better than others, but there's always a moment that you can find a joy in life. In the next episode, we meet Jim Manning. In 2008, the former soldier is living a life of adventure and spontaneity in Southeast Asia. But during a leisurely group dive in Indonesia, Jim and his girlfriend Charlotte find themselves caught in a fierce current. Swept out to sea, the castaways must find land urgently. But even if they make it, what awaits them on shore may pose an even greater challenge.

That's next time on Real Survival Stories.