The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 377: The Great Outhouse Rescue: An American Hero, a Lost Phone, and the Race to Save a Stuck Man

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

Steve Rinella talks with Joe Murray, Kristin Murray, Bruce Reid, Dorothy Reid, Janis Putelis, and Corinne Schneider. Topics discussed: More pictures of people trying to fish cell phones out of pit toilets; fetishists and filling pockets; rescuing an owl from a pit toilet; when your 32nd wedding anniversary plans are interrupted by a toilet rescue; what a man will do to retrieve his cell phone; being stuck as hell; vault toilet, pit toilet, outhouse, and other names for the shitter; a wall of stench and why you're supposed to keep the lid closed; when your phone still works after sinking in a cesspool of shit and piss; disappearing into the hole; the picture leak; a lawn chair dedicated to the cause; some serious engineering; suck and thrust; marriage advice; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. Welcome to the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. Presented by First Light, creating proven, versatile hunting apparel from merino base layers to technical outerwear for every hunt.

First Light. Go farther, stay longer. Real quick, a couple things we want to announce here so our uh i hate to call him our former co-host but it used to be yanni was on like on this show yanni was on every episode this is back when yanni produced uh yanni used to produce our tv show we were always together like we always say nuts on a dog uh yanni was on every episode yanni like missed one episode in years of recording but he's going on he's got he's got his own stuff uh he does his own show runs his own program um he is launching a new podcast which is called uh which is our gear talk podcast, which is Yanni, a collaborative project between our very own Yanni Putellis and Jordan Budd. What we're going to do on our Gear Talk podcast, where they just talk about all things gear, arguments about gear,

what's coming out, what they like, how they pack, just everything from the gear world, deep dives on certain gear items, history on gear and how it came to be the way it is. That's launching. We're going to put the first episode. It has its own home, right? But we're also going to throw the first episode on this podcast feed. So on the MeatEater podcast feed, you'll find the first episode.

It'll serve up to you in your feed, make it convenient for you to check out. That's going to happen on October 20. If you listen, when you listen, and if you like it, meaning when you like it, you can go on over and pick that show up and subscribe to it, and it'll be served to you on its own feed. But again, we're going to launch it here on this feed just to make everybody aware of Yanni's new show, his Gear Talk podcast. Okay, everybody,

this is a special report because we got the source. Corinne's like, um, who are those fellas that, uh, who are those fellas that broke the Watergate story? Woodward and Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Yeah, that's like Corinne. Because Corinne found our phenomenal connection to the mystery of Montana's toilet man. And so we have a special report.

I think Phil should put in like a special report sound. All initial opinions are this is genuine. What you're about to see may disturb you. Oh! For those of you not aware, I'm going to back way up here. We recently, a bunch of people

sent us a story from vice.com, but we've now, we've officially out journalist, out journalistic. That's a verb. We out journalistic vice at this point. Now we're passing them up,

but we had got turned on to a story by reporting on advice about a Montana man stuck in a vault, a vault toilet at a fishing access site. That's the connection to this show is because we like, we spent a lot of time talking about the outdoors, hunting, fishing, obviously. And so since it was a fishing access site, it was fair game. If you'd gotten stuck in, in a, I don't know,

like at a monsters rock festival or something like that, it had nothing, you know what I mean? It'd just be, I would never even read the article, but it's a but it's a fishing story deep down you you with that hayden yeah you catalog it under fishing stories catalog uh now we so a man who had allegedly gone in to retrieve his phone got stuck in a pit toilet at a fishing access site and spent some hours down there uh we were talking about how we would love to get that gentleman on the show to talk about his adventure um he has not come forward however today we will hear, we have here live in the studio, an American hero. We have in the studio the man who just made the discovery and performed the rescue.

We've also got just a, there's one of those things like this thing about falling into a pit toilet, falling into an outhouse toilet or climbing into one at first felt like such a weird anomaly but we have received so much feedback from people um about similar escapades that it's like it's like we tapped into one of the like the hidden world a hidden world of this right away we heard from a woman we got a picture it's on if you go on my Instagram, like, at Stephen Ronell, you'll see a picture of a young lady, a crin-noser.

Yeah, we should make it, this should be our third calendar. That's all I wanted to say. Yeah, so we have a picture of a young lady suspended through the, I guess the pedestal of a pit toilet, trying to use her feet to fish out a phone that fell in.

We just reported on another story from a firefighter out in New Jersey whose crew had to recover a man who was down in the vault of a pit toilet at a boat launch. Again, it turned out he was a fetishist. We then got from, we had a long letter from another person involved in law enforcement who talked about what a recurring issue it is with fetishists. And he spent some time with the Forest Service and had a lot of run-ins with them. And he said, the national forests really are the land of many uses even describes a harrowing story of later patting down a person that he had found in the vault

toilet to find that he had had filled his pockets with the excrement found in said toilet some lift operators who had to rescue an owl out of a pit toilet and they had to lower their colleague down into the quote cesspool of shit and piss and he rescued the owl it goes on and on one person even wrote that they even changed the structure of their pit toilet things in order that there's not a beam with which people can more easily get themselves in there because they imagine they're going to get out easily but they wind up getting so slicked up they can't get purchase on the beam so to prevent them from lowering themselves in, they removed this thing. Where was this beam?

He didn't get into a lot of details, but he mentioned like a structural, he mentioned making a structural adjustment that it wouldn't be like such a simple matter to get down in there. Hmm. So it's like a thing, man. You know, like you peel back the layers of the onion.

And everybody listening, most people listening have been into one of these structures. Oh, I've stared down many a hole. And I've, because I read the signs about like, don't put weird stuff down in here because it's hard to get it out. Yeah. You know who we should have had on to get some insight on this? It's like I don't like looking, but I'll look. We should have had uh miles on to give us a little bit of insight yeah because he's the guy that when you put weird stuff in he's the guy

that has to try to get it out take care of it yeah he manages a lot of the fishing access in eastern Montana he would have been a great source yeah maybe he'll come on when we get the guy that actually was in there when he comes on. I don't know that he's coming forward. Joe, can you introduce yourself? Yeah. My name's Joe Murray. I live in Helena.

And I'm the lucky guy that found the guy in the vault toilet. Give everybody your professional background. Because your professional background just makes you sound like a straight shooter. I don't know if you are. But if I heard that, I'd be like, that guy's got to be a straight shooter. Yeah, well, retired two years ago as the deputy legislative auditor for the state of Montana. Yeah, a guy like that doesn't mess around. No, no, no.

I am a straight shooter. Tell it like it is. And you have your wife is joining you today. Yeah. My wife, Kristen, is here with me. But you weren't there for the adventure. Yes. Yes, she was.

Oh, that's right. I heard about this. Yeah. I was there. Oh, phenomenal. Okay. Okay. And then you have your friend, Bruce.

How you doing? How you doing? Who we can thank for, we'll hear the story about how we found you guys. Yep. And then Bruce's wife. Yep. Dorothy. Dorothy.

Okay. All right. First off, before we get into that fateful day, how did it wind up that, how did Corinne, how did it go that we got ahold of you guys? All Bruce. Yeah. Go ahead, Bruce. That was me.

Joe and I have known each other forever. You guys are fishing buddies. Yes. High ahead, Bruce. That was me. Joe and I have known each other forever. You guys are fishing buddies. Yes. High school, firefighting together, known each other for 40, 45 years. And Joe's got a history recently of doing just terrible Photoshop stuff and sending it to me. And he had Photoshopped, I was convinced he had

Photoshopped this picture of him standing next to this small toilet. I mean, it was just, it was so terrible. I didn't even respond to it. So since retirement, this is what he's been up to. This is his thing. No longer a straight shooter. Yeah.

Yeah. That kind of blows it all. Yeah. He's into making fake stuff. After straight, a whole career of straight shooting. He's like, no, I'm going to make fake stuff. After several years of making stuff up, why would I believe this thing? And, uh, he just so happened that a few weeks after the event.

What was the photo he sent you? Of him standing at the, at the toilet with the individual stuck up to his neck. And Joe's standing there with these, I was convinced it was like Mickey mouse, rubber gloves on that he had, he had mocked up and, and I just looked at it and it's got like looking at one of those blurry pictures of Sasquatch. You just like, oh, that's. And who had snapped the photo?

Did you snap? No, it was, it's the picture that was on Facebook. So there was another couple that he'll talk about that were there and she's the one who took the picture. Oh, I see. Yes.

Yeah. So she, she just kind of casually walked over and clicked it real quick. And that made it onto social media. Yeah. So we don't know if she posted it or she sent it to somebody and then they posted it. So we have no idea how that got on Facebook. Got it. And when Joe was, after I realized, after a

night of sitting on our deck and having a couple of beers and Joe starts telling the story and I realized, my God, this thing is true. So you were originally just dismissed it. Oh yeah. I didn't give it two seconds worth of thought just, just because I knew Joe.

And anyway, as he's getting into this story and I'm realizing, my God, this is a true story, or at least some parts of it. The other couple that was sitting there with us, she quietly brings up the little bit of your podcast earlier on, and I'm starting to kind of like, my God, Joe, you've got to finish the rest of the story. I mean, this thing is out there,

and nobody knows really quite what happened, but you've got to tell this story. And Joe felt that the reporting that we did was a little off. It was by far the most accurate, but it was still a little bit off. Okay. And Joe tells me, well, yeah, you know, I sent a message to, you know, Steve on Instagram. I don't know why he hasn't gotten back to me. I never have.

I just never. I don't even know how to go about getting in there and looking around. This was on a Saturday of Labor Day weekend. So Sunday morning, Joe and Kristen and their friends, Dan and Kathy, they all head back to Helena. And the dust hadn't cleared my driveway. And I went flying inside and I just went right to, you know, like meat eater.com. And I just started finding places to actually send an email, not just an Instagram post

and, uh, sent something off. It's Liberty weekend, Sunday morning. Uh, you know, of course, nothing's happening on, on, on that day. Monday's a holiday. Nothing's happening. By the time Tuesday comes around, I've kind of forgotten the whole thing. And I go downtown and do something. I come home and geez, my phone's lit up. I've got, I've got a couple of phone calls that I've missed from a number that I don't recognize.

It's Corinne's number, followed up with a text message. And it's a good thing you texted because I wouldn't have paid any attention. And I play the voicemail and it's Corinne and she's laughing so hard. I can hardly get the, I can hardly get the message. And she's like, oh my God, Bruce, you've got to call me. You've got to call me now. And she had the text message to boot. And so I called her and she just starts laughing. And she says, yes, we want to, we want to meet the guy, Joe. And, uh, she says, do a, um, do an introduction via text, you know, text Joe and Corinne at the same time. Yep. And so I did that and I literally sent the text and I could just do a countdown.

Three, two, one, cue the phone. And Joe calls me. He's like, what the hell? Well, you know, what's funny about this is since you didn't respond and you just ignored me, I went on to Corinne's Instagram site or whatever you call it. And I sent her a message and I didn't, I mean, it literally wasn't 10 seconds after I sent this, I got that text from Bruce. Oh, but coincidence. Yeah, it was weird. And so I was like, so that's when I called him and I said, I started to respond via text and I saw there was another number on there who I

obviously didn't know who it was. And thought no I better not because it wasn't a very nice text at the you know but uh so I called him and I said what the hell come on he goes nope and he told me this story and he said you know you need to call her so I get I after I got phone I said okay I'll give her a call so I called and I started to leave a message and then like heard the phone beeping through and then made connection with Corinne and we chatted for a while. She goes, well, do you want to do a video call tomorrow? And you know, I'd love to hear the story and this and that.

And so, yeah, so we set one up and did a video call the next, the next day to. Excellent. Tell her the story. This is a good little insight into how Corinne conducts her business. Yeah. She's good. Yeah. She's really good. I like to hear this kind of stuff. Yeah. She's really good. insight into how Corinne conducts her business. Yeah. She's good. Yeah, she's really good. I like to hear this kind of stuff.

Yeah, she's really good. I don't know what the hell she's doing. But, you know, we had a great conversation, you know, and then she hears, you know, my professional background, Bruce's professional background. And it's like, ooh, this makes it even better. And I said, well, I'll just walk you through the story. And so I did. And, uh, here we are, you know, doing a, doing your podcast. So let's get into the day. You, what are you out doing? The day of?

Yeah. Coming back from, uh, we had rented a VR or I rented a VRBO up just out of Sula for our anniversary. Oh, that's romantic. Yeah. Did you like that little trip? Loved it. You did? That's cute.

What anniversary? 32 years. Congratulations. Yeah. Thanks. And so we always tried to do something. And we used to spend a lot of time in that area when we were dating. Because back then, I was actually in banking.

I was started in Boise and then got transferred to Salmon, Idaho. And that's where I met my wife. That's where I'm from. Her dad was the forester supervisor over there. And, and so, you know, the Combs family over there. There's a few of them actually. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, so I thought, you know, it'd be fun to go over there. Cause we used to go over there and spend time. There's a few of them actually. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought, you know, it'd be fun to go over there. Cause we used to go over there and spend time, you know, messing around that country we were dating. So I thought I'll do that. So we booked this VRBO, great little place over on the East Fork of the Bitterroot. And we, I don't know, we were there three, four days. Were you guys fishing? Yeah, we fished a little bit, did, did some, uh,

really nice hike back into a place called Star Falls. Uh, beautiful country. Um, and we were on our way back from a nice romantic anniversary weekend. Oh, I'm hearing you. Yeah. That sounds like a great trip. And, uh, you know, so when we went there, we went through Missoula.

I said, we'll just do a big loop. So we stopped at a brewery and had some lunch and stuff. Then off to Sula. I said, well, when we go back, let's go back through the big hole. And so, you know, we got coffee and water and we got out of Wisdom, I don't know, 10 miles or so. And I told Chris, I said, God, I got to pee. And you're driving along the Big Hole River. Driving along the Big Hole River.

Okay. And I said, I have to pee. And I asked her, do you have to go? Which is always a yes. But this instance, it was a no. She goes, can you just wait till the rest area over on the interstate? And I went, no, no. So, you know, a couple of, usually I'll just pull over on the side of a road, you know.

Sure, yeah. Go. And I started to and I went, no, you know, Kristen, if I stop, she's going to go. And so I thought, well, let's just pull into fish trap. Like a kid. Yanni, this is the intimacy you get after 30 seconds. That's right. You know, you got to dial. This is like a kid. Yeah. I mean, this is the intimacy you get after 30. That's right. You know, you got to dial.

You're like, you're planning ahead. What they don't, you don't need, you know, more than they know about when they're going to want to pee. Yeah. I mean, well, I did, and I know my wife well enough that I could stop literally every 10 miles and she could pee. So, okay. Move on from that.

We're moving on now. But, uh, so I, I said, well, said, well, let's just stop at Fishtrap because my wife actually likes that when she's heading back to Salmon and stuff. She stopped there because it was kind of an easy stop and quick and go. So I pulled in there. And when we pulled in, which was really surprising, there was not another soul there. Usually there'll be a camper camp there, you know, maybe somebody wade fishing, a boat launch. And I, you know, I think it was really hot. I mean, it was 90 degrees at least.

It was so hot. And I think the big hole was on hoot owl restrictions at this point. So there wasn't anybody. Tell people what that means. Well, basically hoot owl restrictions are you got to stop fishing on the river at two o'clock in the afternoon. So you can't fish from two to seven in the

morning or six in the morning or something like that. Because of water. Because of water temperatures. Yeah. Like it's too hard on fish. Yeah. Yeah. But water temperature gets over, it's too hard on fish. Yeah.

Yeah. The water temperature gets over, it's 68 degrees or something, 70 degrees. And then if you catch them and let them go, mortality goes up. Mortality goes up. Yeah. Yeah. So I pulled in there and there was nobody there. And, you know, I'm sitting there thinking to myself, watch, I'll turn around the corner to the vault toilet and there'll be one car there. And I turned around and there was a pickup there.

And I was just like, oh, damn. Nice pickup? No, it looked like a work truck. Okay. Any particular company written on it? Not that I noticed. Steve? What was the plate number?

I don't have the plate number memorized, but I thought, oh, crap. So I just parked and I thought, well, I'll just walk over. I was actually just going to walk over to the bushes. Peel out yonder. Just peel out yonder, yeah. And I thought, no, my luck is there's a couple of trails. And I thought, as soon as I do that, whoever's in that truck is going to come walking out. Now I'm just excited. I thought, I'll just go use the vault toilet.

No, but did you call it a vault toilet prior? I probably called it an outhouse. Me too. After this whole thing, Me too. Yeah. After this whole thing, for sure. Yeah. It's going to end in my personal lexicon. Oh, yeah, for sure.

I'm going to start really differentiating. Yeah. I'm becoming, you know, it made me more professional in how I call. Oh, yeah. You sound like a guy that really knows what's going on. That's right. Yeah. So anyway, I walked up to the door, grabbed the handle and it's locked. And I'm like, so I thought, well, I'll just go back to the bush.

Yeah. I started walking away and I hear a guy go, hello. And I go, you know, just kind of go, hello. You know, I, you know, I could like, I get to myself, yeah, I know you're in there. The door is locked. And so I started to keep walking. Kristen, where are you right now? So I was in the truck then just waiting for him to get out because actually I did have to go after that.

But, yeah, that all ended. See, Janice, that all ended. See, Janice, that's true. You learn their key rhythms after 32 years. I was just waiting my turn. So I hear the hello, and I say, hello. And so all of a sudden he goes, I need help. Oh.

And I said, you need help? What's going on? He goes, I dropped my phone in the toilet and I went in after it and I'm stuck. And I went, you're stuck? And he goes, yeah, I'm stuck. I said, is your head down in the toilet? Because I envisioned he crawled in head first and trying to fish it out. He goes, no, my head's above the toilet. I'm like, oh, okay.

All right. Well, I know you can, at least your head's above, you know, water. What kind of water? And so I said, hang on a minute. I'm going to go to my truck and pull out a couple of screwdrivers, tools, just to see if I can get this door open somehow. And he goes, okay. He's calm. He's calm.

Pretty calm. And I said, how long have you been in there? And he goes, I've been in here for three hours and you're the first person to stop. And I went three hours and he goes, yeah, three hours. And he goes, I've been trying to crawl out of this and I'm all scraped up and I'm, I'm just beat. I'm absolutely whipped. I can't get, I can't get myself out. And I said, okay, all right. And I'm still in my mind trying to process how somebody would crawl down into, you know, the pedestal toilet. Yeah.

You know, I just, you know. So I walked back to my truck and I opened my back door to lift up my seat up and get a couple of screwdrivers. And I, Kristen looked at me and she goes, what's wrong? Because I had. He had this look on his face like, holy shit, like something just happened. And I said, I just looked at her and I went, there's a guy, the door's locked and the guy's in there stuck in the toilet. He's in the toilet. And she goes, what the hell?

What? I said, that's what he told me. He needs help. I got to try to get him out. And she's like, oh, God. So she gets out. So I walked over. And the reason I grabbed screwdrivers, of course, of course that particular vault toilet, you know, doesn't just have the button lock on the handle.

It's got a bolt. Got it. Dead bolt lock. And I thought, well, I don't think, I don't know if I can get that, get in there with, you know, through with that. So I told the guy, I said, Hey, I'm going to, there's a vent on the bottom of the door for at least most of the FWP sites just for ventilation. Sure. So I told the guy, I said, Hey, I'm going to take the, this vent door off and I'm going to see if I can get down and just kick the, the vent out on your side. And he goes, well, it's, it's screwed in over here.

And I said, yeah, I realize that, but if I can just kick it hard enough, I might be able to, they're not screwed in very far. I might be able to break through. And he goes, okay. So I took the screws off the vent and except one didn't come out. So I had to bend it back and I sat down and I just started kicking the screen. I kicked it, I don't know, probably a dozen times. And I told him, I said, well, you're right. I can't, I, I can't get through this. I can't break it down. They're screwed in better than I thought. And he goes, okay. And I said, well, just hang tough.

I'm going to see if I can Jimmy this lock somehow. So, um, so I took a flathead screwdriver and I stuck it into the deadbolt and just started reefing on it, you know, just, you know, thinking I'm never going to get this open. And, you know, lo and behold, after about the sixth or eighth pull, Jim did enough and the door popped open. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada.

The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you, you guys in the great white north can be part of it.

Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit OnXMaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all.

Oh, yeah. When that popped open. It had. Oh, guys. It was, you know, again, I'm talking, it's 90 degrees by this time. And, you know, a wall of stench just. Oh, is that right? It just about knocked me over.

It was bad. Worse than normal. It was bad. Oh, absolutely worse than normal. There's a reason they tell you to keep the lids closed. There's a reason they tell you to keep the lids closed. There's a reason they tell you to keep the lids closed. Exactly. So once I kind of got through the whole, man, that's awful.

I looked, expecting to see a guy stuck in the pedestal, but the pedestal toilet is laying on the floor and he's in the hole. And all I can see is his head and, you know, he's kind of resting with his arms up on the, on the floor. So he'd taken those toilets off that toilet off. And I didn't know you could do it. And then as soon as I saw that, I went, oh, that's how they clean those out. You know, cause I always, I always wondered. You know, because I always wondered,

I always wondered, you know, God, that's gotta be a pain in the butt, you know, go get the septic truck or whoever pumps them out and stick it down that, you know, never,

you know, it's not like I lay awake at night wondering how they clean vault toilets, but. How, how wide is the, what's the aperture on that hole? Oh, three, you know, it's, it's kind of, it's just roundish, maybe ovalish, three feet, you know. So he must have had limited upper body strength.

Because if you can get your elbows up through a hole. Well, he was a... So... So when I got... When I saw him, you know, when I saw his head, I didn't think much. I just kind of thought, ooh, this is weird.

How old is he? Oh, I suppose he's in his, you know, early 40s. Okay. Yeah. Early 40s. Younger than me. Yeah.

I don't. Yeah. Are you older than young 40s? Oh, yeah. Okay. So yeah. Younger. Probably younger than you.

Hmm. Certainly younger than me. Somehow I picture, like somehow I like to picture him older than me. Yeah. Well, we can do that. We'll do that. Like, like. Yeah.

48. We'll go there. So. So I, I so so I so I when I got through and I walked up to him I just kind of went hey how you doing and he goes well I've been fucking better so anyway I said yeah I'm sure you have I'm sure you have. I'm sure you have. So I walked up to him and I looked and he pretty much fills up the whole hole. I mean, he's a big, he's a big man. Um, but I looked, I went, oh, he's naked. He doesn't have any clothes on. I turned and I looked at the door and I went, yeah, he is naked.

All his clothes were hanging on the hook in the door. And I, I said, so you took all your clothes off? And he goes, yeah, I didn't want to get them dirty. So I hung them up and crawl down in here and get it, get the phone. And, and, and, you know, and I was just going to crawl out. And he goes, I just can't get myself out. I just don't have the strength. And I keep getting, my body keeps getting stuck on the hole because he's, he's, he's a, he's, he was a mountain of a man. What's the volume of waste down in the vault? Well, I, I, I, I'll get into that a little later. I can't say exactly. I can only base it on sound. The level of commitment to get down in there.

From him? Yeah. Well, it would be a matter of simply of just taking the vault toilet off or the toilet off and dropping it. You're going in. You're going in knee deep. You're looking down there. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I would say he's probably knee deep in there. Okay. I don't know if it had been just so recently cleaned. Yeah. That he felt like he could stand over in the corner and be on pavement. No, no, no, no.

He's down in there. You are not going to avoid anything that was down in that hole. Knee deep. Yeah. Yeah. That would be my guess. And so when I walked in, first thing I saw actually was his phone. He got his phone.

He reached down in there and dug around and got – and the phone was just laying there on the floor and lit up. It was still working. So he was successful. Why hadn't he called? There is no cell service there. It's absolutely that entire big whole valley is completely void of cell service. Got it. That sounds like a good place. Yeah, three hours, no one shows up.

But can't you call like 911 without cell service? I have no idea. I don't know. Did you ever find out what he was doing or how the phone got in there? All he said was he stopped there to do some fishing. And he said, well, I had some business to take care of before. And he went in there and he said he just dropped his phone into the toilet um you know sounds like you know something everybody's done i don't usually take my phone in anywhere that has no cell service

and in a vault toilet even if it does i don't take my phone in there just because you know how many times have you taken a you know something in with you and it slipped out and went in there just because, you know, how many times have you taken a, you know, something in with you and it slipped out and went in there. It's like, oh crap. But now that's down there, but it's going to stay there. But I just think he walked in and I don't know if he slipped or went to turn and the phone slipped, but it dropped down in there and, and, uh, and he was adamant he was going to get it, you know, and I can't tell you why.

And the phone on the floor was soiled. Yeah, well, it was, yeah, I have no doubt it was soiled. Yeah, but it was still working. But it was still working, you know. You know, like I dropped my phone in our hot tub at home a week or so ago and pulled it out, you know, within about 30 seconds and it still works. So good. Yeah. You know, so liquid solids, if you know, this, I think it was an iPhone. I think they, you know, they're pretty solid, pretty solid, uh, products. This is an iPhone plug. So, um, so anyway, so I told the guy, I said, well, and he was all scraped up.

He had scrapes everywhere on his body from trying to get out. Cause edges are pretty sharp on those, on those holes. I mean, they're just completely square. And I was just like, uh, yeah, man, the poor guy. And so I said, well, we're going to try the easiest thing first. And I said, I'm just going to come. I said, I'm going to go get some gloves. And I said, yeah.

So he goes, okay. And so as I was walking, I turned around trying to make a joke that he didn't think was very funny. But I turned around and said, don't go anywhere. I'll be right back. And he goes, I'm not going to fucking go anywhere. Okay. Well, that's not in a joking mood. So I went and got my gloves and I came back in and I said, all right, I'm going to grab your hand and kind of under your elbow, arm, armpit area. And I said, you just push with your other hand. Let's just see if I can pull you up. I said, it's going to be hard, but maybe, you know, it's our first,

you know, the first thing we got to do. He goes, okay. So, you know, I said, I'm going to say one, two, three, go. And on go, just start working. I said, okay. So I grabbed his hands, his hand is, you know, under his armpit. And I went, one, two, three, go. And I went to lift. I didn't move him an eighth of an inch. I mean, it was just, I just went, hell, this is not going to work. And he goes, yeah, plus I'm tired. I just can't, I can't push myself up.

I went, okay. so uh you know he did say he goes if i could get just a little elevation something to stand on it might help me you know help push myself out as you're lifting me i said okay i said well i don't have anything in my in my truck uh you know i did think well i could put you know kristin down in the hole and stand up stand shoulders, but I don't, I don't think she would have gone for that. So, so I went, you know, I, I just did not have anything in my, my truck. I had a couple of fly rods and, uh, you know, a little travel bag and, you know, that wasn't going to work. So I went to his pickup and I looked in the back and he had two pieces of wood, basically, you know, quarter sections of like firewood, you know, that were, um, were chopped, uh, that he had back there. So, so I grabbed one of those and, uh, so I took that in and I said,

let's try this. He goes, well, it might be pretty wobbly. I don't know if it's going to work. I said, well, we really don't have a whole lot of options right now. I mean, we got to give this a try. And he goes, yeah, you're right. And I said, so can you get that down there? Because I'm looking at him. I'm looking at the hole and I'm going, there isn't a quarter inch or half inch of room between his body and.

Oh, so it's a tight fit, even when he duck away from the hole. Yeah. Yeah. He could, I mean, you know, like I said, he was, he was a, he was a big man. And, and I, I just, just like, I don't know how we can get this in there. Um, but you'll see, you know, I'll let him do what he needs to do and to see if he can, you know, squeeze it between his, you know. So I said, okay, take this and let's give this, give this a shot. And he goes, I said, yeah, can you get that in there?

And he goes, oh yeah, I can get it. I can get it there. I said, okay. So I gave him a block of wood and he dropped in the hole and I just went, holy shit. I was like, oh my God, he's gone. He fell in, he sunk, he disappeared, you know? And I didn't know what, you know, I was just kind of freaked out about it. And I hear him down in the hole, just walking around.

All you can hear, you know, is sploosh, sploosh, sploosh, you know, the sound. I mean, you can almost hear stuff coming up between his toes. Like a sea deer walking through the marsh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, the block of wood is, you know, maybe 12 inches tall, you know, maybe 16 inches.

And you can hear him down there, you know, pushing it down and getting it as steady as it gets down. His head pops back up. And I said, did you get it in there? And he goes, yeah, it's kind of wobbly, but you know, it might work. And I went, okay, okay. And now I'm looking at thinking, I don't know which hand he used to do that. But I had a long sleeve shirt and gloves. I thought, okay, well, we just got to get this poor guy out of here. Had you at this point, had you thought, I'm going to leave this to the professionals? Or were you just like 100% committed to making the rescue? At this point, I was 100% committed to uh, uh, you know, just to see if

we could get them out. Cause you know, he'd been in there for three hours and it's like, you know, so I'd call you a good Samaritan, but my understanding of a Samaritan is they were generally bad. Really? Yeah. So when people say someone's a good Samaritan, they're messing it up. It's like a good Samaritan was, these are like bad people, but here one did a good turn. That's my understanding.

Oh. Yeah. Little known fact about being a good Samaritan. So now I don't throw that around because you might be like, well, what's wrong with me? Well, no, I actually was kind of thinking, well, that technically probably fits. You're really good at being a bad person. Yeah, really good at being a bad person Yeah, really good at being a bad person That's right

So, anyway You're just a nice guy Next time you go into the coffee shop And you can be like, hey, can you give me the nice guy deal They'd be like, really, bro? And you'd be like, listen You pulled a dude out of a vault toilet You know where I've been?

Well, and really where I was thinking is You know, when I go inside a vault toilet Hopefully somebody will do the same thing for me Sure, you know, and really where I was thinking is, you know, when I go inside a vault toilet, hopefully somebody will do the same thing for me. Sure. You'd want to be the favor to be reciprocated. Yeah. So anyway, so we got, he's got the block of wood down there and he comes up and I go, is that giving you a little more elevation? He goes, yeah, a little bit, but it's pretty wobbly. He said, well, let's give it a try.

And so he stood up on it and you could tell it lifted him up a little bit, but not a lot, but might be enough. I said, just keep your knee bent. And when I say go, just push yourself. And even if it falls over, it might give you enough momentum to get up. He goes, okay. So then one, two, three, go. I went lift, block of wood fell over and we got no further than we did the other way. I said, okay, let me go get that other block of wood. I said, let's, we can make at least a half a block. Half a round. Yeah. Or half a round.

And so I, I went and got the other one, handed it to him. He went back in the hole, squished around in there, but now that didn't bother me at all. So had you guys introduced yourselves to each other yet? Were you on a first name basis at this point? Well, we did. I asked him what his name was and I was so freaked out I didn't really pay attention to what his name was.

But we'll say his name was Steve. Kristen, are you getting in there and helping or are you just kind of hanging around? No, I was just kind of hanging out because there's nothing I could have done. But one thing I do have to say about Joe is that he always, he was so calm with him. He never like freaked out, never. And he would talk to him, just trying to keep him calm, right? Because he'd been in there for three hours already. And so I was really impressed

with that is because he just kept him calm going, you know, bud, we're, we're gonna do this. We're gonna get you out, you know, just hang tight kind of a thing. So you picked the right guy all those 32 years ago. I did. Yes. Yes, for sure. Yeah. Was the guy getting tense? Could you, could you sense there was like a little bit of like anxiety? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent.

Yeah. He was, you know, um, you know, and, and obviously the thing is just heating up. And when you take that, what's so often now it's just a hole. The. It's hot. The gases are much worse. I mean, it's just a. Because it, it, it starts to negate that, it starts to negate that vent pipe.

That vent pipe. It's not drawing a draft. Yep. Yep. And it's, it was, and it was bad. So, so I put the other block of wood down and basically got the same result. It just wasn't going to work. So this is where I went, okay, well, in my truck, I've got rope and I've got a toe strap. So I was kind of looking and I thought, well, you know, they've got the bar in there for, you know, the handicap bar.

And I thought, oh, that's not going to work. And I don't want to rip that off the wall. And I thought, well, I could pull my truck up. And I thought, oh, that's not going to work. And then I don't want to rip that off the wall. And I thought, well, I could pull my truck up and I thought, well, rope's out. That's just not going to work. But the tow strap, you know, is whatever, four inches wide. And I thought, well, I could hook it to my truck and have them wrap it around, maybe pull them out. Went, no, that's not going to work. I thought, well, I could drop it down and maybe he could use it to try to climb up. And I thought, no, he's not it down and maybe he could use it to try to climb up. And I thought, no, he's not going to be able to do that either.

And at this point is when I thought, well, you know, I never actually thought about calling 911. But I did think about, I thought, I might have to drive over to, there's a couple of ranch houses. There's one right by it, yeah. And I thought, maybe drive over there and they probably have a landline we can call and then we can get, you know, professional rescue crew there. And so I was sitting here and I was trying to, what am I going to do here? And maybe I'll just drive to the ranch house and I'm still talking to the guy, but I'm thinking about what I want to do. And I hear another vehicle drive up.

And so I thought, oh, that's fantastic. I said, hey, I just heard a vehicle drive up. I'm going to see if somebody's in there that might be able to give us a hand. And he goes, okay. And sort of being in a bit of a smart ass move, I started walking out. I turned around and I went, don't go anywhere. Just stay right there. And he thought it was about as funny as he did the first time.

That joke didn't grow on him. So I went out and Kristen had waved him down and stopped him. And so I walked up and- And when you stopped him, what did you say? Well, I just kind of flagged him down because sometimes when you go to a place like that, it's like, oh, well, somebody's already there. We're just going to leave, right? So I didn't want him to leave.

So I was just flagging him down. Then they pull up and the husband and wife or boyfriend, girlfriend. So he was driving. She was on the passenger side of course. So she rolled down the window about that time Joe came out. Okay. Yeah. So.

So you were able to introduce the subject. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so I walked up and she rolled down the window and, uh, you know, the guy, they, they were actually coming there. They wanted to do a little bit of fishing and, and I walked up to the window and I kind of leaned up on the passenger window, kind of stuck my head in just so the guy at the vault toilet wouldn't hear the conversation. And I said, I need a hand. I need some help.

And the guy goes, well, what's going on? And he had his hat on, has a ponytail coming out the back. And I go, well, there's a guy stuck in the vault toilet. I mean, like stuck neck deep in the hole. And I had to break in and the door was locked and I had to break in and I found him. He's been in there for three hours and it's closer to four hours now.

And the guy just took his hat off, kind of pulled his ponytail out, rubbed his head, put his hat back on, put his ponytail back in his hat. He looked out the – it was just – it just cracked me up. It was kind of surreal actually. He just sort of looked out, you know, stared off out the windshield for about five seconds. He kind of had this look on his face. Then he just turned and looked at me. He goes, well, there's something I didn't expect to hear today. I said, well, that makes two of us. I didn't expect to find this either. And I said, I said, I just can't get the guy out. I can't get him out by myself. I said, between the two of us, we might be able to lift him out. And he goes, yeah, okay.

I'd be happy to give you a hand. So he pulled up. And he got gloves on. Yeah. I said, get gloves. And he goes, oh, yeah. He got gloves. And so we go walking in.

And I said, hey, I've got an extra body here. Give me a hand. He goes, oh, good, Good. And the guy walks in. He goes, Hey, how you doing? He goes, well, it's like I told the other guy I've been fucking better. And he goes, well, we'll get you out of here. We'll get this all figured out. And so the guy goes, Hey, hang on a minute. I just, I'm going to go out and check something. And so the guy goes, Hey, hang on a minute. I just,

I'm going to go out and check something. And so the guy walks out, Kristen and his wife or his girlfriend were kind of standing over by the vehicle. And he walks out with his hands on a, on his hips, on his hips. And he just goes, what the fuck?

He was just, it was, and she and I are standing there. I'm like, I know, I, I, I know.

So, so he just, he just had to get that off his chest. Yeah. And he just kind of looked at me. I was like, yeah, right.

I mean, so we walked in and we said, well, let's just do the simple thing first. Let's give it the old heave ho. And so we get down there and do the same thing. I grab an arm, hand. He grabs the other arm, hand. We go, okay, one, two, three. And this time, you know, where I didn't really budge them before

we maybe lifted them, uh, you know, a half an inch, it just, it just wasn't going to work. And so I told the guy, I said, you know, what we need is just something that he can stand on that we can put down there. I said, we put a couple of blocks of wood down there that they just weren't steady enough. Maybe not tight. And he goes, I said, do you have anything in your truck? I said, I don't have anything. And he goes, well, he goes, maybe let me, let me go look. And, and so at some point in time, when this was going on, he told his wife, you've got to get a picture or his girlfriend, whatever it was. And that's where that picture came from. Yeah. Yeah. So she just kind of walked up. And they reported it to the, they sent it into the.

Well, I don't know how it got on Facebook. I have no idea. Well, and I'll get to that. Or where. The first time I saw that picture kind of here at the end of this story. Because I didn't know she took pictures. I didn't know any pictures existed. That's sly. So the guy, we walk over his truck and he's kind of looking and he's pulling things up.

And finally he goes, pulls out a lawn chair. And it's one of those lawn chairs that, you know, you can fold up, slip into a bag. And so he pulls that out and he goes, well, I'll dedicate this to the cause. And, you know, and I'm kind of bummed out because we introduced ourselves to each other. They were great people. I think apparently they're from Ennis. Yeah. And, you know, just they were really, really nice folks and good sense of

humor. You know, we had pretty good, some good chuckles while we were doing this. Cause it's just so unbelievable. And, and so we, he grabbed the lawn chair and he also grabbed a towel, um, because he thought, you know, if we get them out, we, you know, I'll put it on the edge of the hole because it's just a cement floor. We, you know, he's sweaty, sticky, you know, if we get him out, I'll put it on the edge of the hole because it's just a cement floor. You know, he's sweaty, sticky. He had a really good idea. Get him on the towel and then we can kind of slide him out. And so he laid the towel down.

It's like a millwright job. Yeah, yeah. There was some engineering involved in this thing. So the guy has the lawn chair and he's going, I don't know how he's going to get this down that hole. And I just kind of went, oh, I'm sure he'll figure out a way. And so he's because he's, you know, he's the, he's filling the whole hole. I said, well, he'll get it down there. So the guy goes, okay, we're, we're going to use this lawn chair. It should be steadier. If you can get it opened up and all four feet.

He goes, if you can get it down there. And guy goes, yeah, I can get it down here. So he hands the guy the lawn chair and he's having the same thought I am at this point. The guy that gave him the lawn chair and thinking, how's he going to get in there? And so he gives him the lawn chair. The guy drops into the hole and the guy's going, holy crap. He just went, fell in the, I just looked at him. I said, oh, it's okay.

It's all good. I've seen this before he'll pop back up and he's like, oh my God. And I, you can hear the guy down in there sloshing around and, you know, you hear the lawn chair open up and you can hear it hit the ground he's kind of squeezing that down into the bottom to get it steady and and the guy pops up and we go you got that lawn chair steady and goes yeah it's pretty steady and we said okay um we're gonna say one two three and on go, push yourself up. And I didn't know if the lawn chair would really hold them and stuff.

And he's standing up on. Yeah. At this point, he's standing. And we looked and we went, this gives us some height. A lot better. It lifted him up, whatever, probably 24 inches, you know, so we got more leverage. So he's sitting where on his, on his torso is the edge of the hole.

Uh, after with the lawn chair, uh, it came. So before he was only able to go armpit, you know, just resting his armpits. So now he's down navel region or whatever. So now he lifted up about bottom of the sternum. Okay. So, I mean, he went from, from basically here to there. So his neck, neck up to, yeah, neck up to sternum. Yeah.

And, and he had, uh, he had something he could push on to help lift himself up. So we told the guy, we said, okay, we need you to push up, but you need to do something for us because otherwise we're not going to get you out of this hole. And he goes, well, what's that? We said, as soon as we start lifting, you got to suck in your, your gut. You got to suck that gut in so we can get you up over the hole. Yeah. He said, but as soon as that, your gut starts coming out, you need to thrust your ass. Otherwise it's going to get stuck on that hole. So it's suck and thrust. Sure. And he's okay. Okay. No, that's good advice yeah yeah right always lifelong lesson you know so

so anyway so one two three go we grab him you know and he forgot to suck it first and so we put him back down and said okay remember to suck in your gut all right one two three go me pull them we said suck suck in your gut suck it. And we got him lifted up. And then we had, you know, his butt got stuck on the other side of the hole. And we said, thrust. So then he thrusted and up he came. And we got him on the towel and kind of slid him across. And we were just like, you know, so now we have this naked guy laying on the towel. And we just went, okay, you're out. We're going to go

out, just take the towel, wrap it around you and walk to the river and go clean yourself. That's a good idea. And so we just went out and we just went, holy crap. I cannot believe that we just had to do this, but we got him out. The guy's good. You know, he was, he kind of laid there for a minute, um, just to catch his breath, you know? Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

And so we went over and we were standing by our vehicles and talking, you know, I was thanking him for the help and, and, um. You're thanking the ponytail guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I wish, yeah, we introduced ourselves.

I wish I could remember their, their names. Like you'd go fishing with them. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was a good dude. Yeah. She was wish, yeah, we introduced ourselves. I wish I could remember their names. Like you'd go fishing with them. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was a good dude. Yeah, she was really nice too.

And they said they're from Ennis. And Kristen and I talked. At some point in time, we're going to go to Ennis. We're going to go to the distillery or the brewery or something. And I'm going to tell this story because I'm sure it's floating around Ennis. Oh, you know what? That's a great way to find him. Somebody's going to know that story.

And somebody's going to go. There's no way that guy hasn't gone and. Yeah. Yeah. And somebody, because I bet you he's from Bozeman and just didn't want to admit it. So. Over by, over by Ennis. I want to buy the guy a bottle of whiskey or some beers or something.

I just. Yeah, but it's not. But he helped. But he helped. But he helped. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I just want to thank him for the help. I mean, I thanked him, but I want to, you know, thank him with a toast or something.

Because he didn't have to stay, and it was his idea for the lawn chair. Well, I think you guys should both be honored. Yeah. You know those when you're driving along and you see those things that like historical marker up ahead? Yeah, right? marker yeah in 2022 yeah yeah so so anyway so we're standing there talking and and the guy comes walking out he's got the towel wrapped around him and he's like oh god thanks you guys i can't tell you how much i appreciate that we're like no problem you know geez i'm glad we could, and he comes while, and he tells the guy, he goes, I'm going to buy you a new lawn chair.

And he goes, no, no, don't worry about it. I can get another one of those pretty, pretty easily. Don't, don't worry about that. And so we just said, you just keep walking, just keep walking to the, to the river, go take a bath. And he goes, yep. Yep. And so he's got his, uh, clothes kind of, I think, dangling off his arm or something. He's holding the towel and he went walking by and, and, uh, the towel, let's just say the towel didn't quite go around. It didn't quite go around. You know, he went, he was fine in the front, but we just watched his little tux. The back half just walked towards the river. So we were just sitting there and we were kind of talking a little bit.

And I said, well, we were actually going to stop at the distillery in Butte and have a Caesar on the way home. And so we were running a little late. But I went to my truck and I have hand sanitizer in there. And I took some and I cleaned myself up. And I asked the guy, do you want some of this? He's like, oh, hell yes. So I, you know, he said, oh no, give me more. So I just emptied my bottle that, you know, it was just a little bottle, gave him a bottle. And we were just like, you know, and so I said, well, he goes, well, we were here to fish. And I said, I'm just, guess we're going to pull our rods out and we're going to, cause it wasn't two o'clock yet.

It was, you know, I don't know. It was like 11 noon. And so he goes, we're going to go fish for a little bit. I said, yeah, we're going to, we're going to head off to Butte. You already knew what you were going to order. Yeah. We already knew what we were going to order. Yeah.

Yeah. We actually talked about it when we left the VRBO and, you know, Sula. Because, you know, the, because Headframe Distillery is a fantastic distillery. And they got a good Caesar salad. Oh, yeah. And if you get one. You get a bloody Caesar or a Caesar salad? A drink.

Oh, a drink. The drink, yeah. The drink. I thought you were fixing to go get a Caesar salad. No, a drink Caesar. And it's actually a gin Caesar, which is, the way they make is fantastic. So we'll-

That must be a Montana thing because I was recently in White Sulfur and someone was like, oh, we should go get a Caesar over here. They have good ones. I'm like, what?

Yeah. Oh, they're good. They have the Bloody Mary with clam juice. Yeah, it's Clamato. So it's a gin Bloody Mary with clam juice. Yeah.

Or Clamato. Clamato. Or, yeah. Clamato. Clamato. Yeah, Clamato. Yeah. Yeah. I know, man. It's so damn good, actually. And it's just not, you know, tomato juice is just thick and gross.

Yeah. I disagree. Clamato juice is, it's, yeah. You're like, I've had enough of thick, gross stuff. Yeah. That's right. Exactly. So, but anyway, so we said our goodbyes.

And it's dumb us, you know, didn't exchange phone numbers with these folks that, you know, we were just, I was still, you know, we were just kind of, I just wanted to get out of there. But you didn't know you were a part of a national news story. No, no. I figured this was the end of it.

No. So we went and I told Chris and I said, I got to stop at the bar at Wise River. I could literally drink a six pack, but I just need to stop in there and wash my hands in the bathroom and I'll get a diet Pepsi or something until we get to Butte. So we walked in and then, you know, I went, I said, Hey, no one's in there except that there was an older lady and the younger guy behind the bar. I said, I just got to use your bathroom and I'll take it. Just get, how about a diet Pepsi? I haven't had one of those for 10 years. He goes, okay. So I went in there and I washed about four times. And well, they obviously, Kristen had said something, oh, my husband's got a story. And I said, hey, we ought to hear this.

So I went through the story and, you know, this is what's funny is the man, woman, Venus, Mars thing, you know, she's, she's going, oh, you saved us like you're a hero. God, thank God for people like you. And, you know, that guy could have died. And I'm saying, the young guy behind the bar was going, how stupid was this guy? It's like, no, you know, the guy made a bad mistake, you know, error of judgment and blah, blah, blah, blah. So anyway, we went off and had our Caesar. I told the guy that helped me, I said, hey, one thing I'm going to do is I'm going to call FWP on Monday.

This was a Saturday. This story makes me want to get retired so bad. So fun, you guys. It's just like this whole group you guys got going on. It's phenomenal, man. So I said, I know who I have to call over there. I said, I'm not going to call the regional office because they have a new division over there.

I can't remember exactly what it's called, but it's the outdoor recreation and something. But I knew they oversee the access sites now. And it turns out the division administrator, somebody used to work down the hall from me in the Capitol building. And so I called her and left a message and just said, Hey, I got something I need to talk to you about up at the fish trap fishing access site. If you can give me a call back, you know, appreciate it. And, you know, I don't know, half hour later. So she calls me and she goes, Hey Joe, how's it going? How's the retirement? I said, it's great. Love it. You know, doing a lot of fishing and skiing and, you know, traveling and hunting and all that stuff. Good stuff.

I said, hey, congratulations on the new job. You like it? Yeah. She goes, oh, I love it. It's my dream job. And yada, yada, yada. So we got done with the small talk. She goes, what's going on at fish trap?

And I went, well, so I told her the story and she's, you know, going kind of laughing and going, oh my God, I did not know I was going to start my Monday like this. And so I told her, I said, oh, look, I just want you to know, I told her about the vent and I had to pry the lock open. I said, I just want you to realize, know that it wasn't vandalism, that it was, you know, this is what happened. A rescue. Yeah. Yeah. And, oh, she goes she goes well i appreciate that i i said oh by the way i because i just told her we got him and i said by the way um i do need you to apologize for

the maintenance staff for me when they go there like who doesn't want stuff down the vault yeah now he's got a chair down she goes well what? I said, well, because they're going to find two blocks of wood and a lawn chair inside the toilet. And she says, what? I said, well, we had to use these as part of the extraction. And she goes, okay, okay. So I said, just let them know. And she goes,

okay, well, maybe a game warden might want to call you just to file a report. I said, it's fine. And one never did. But I said, I also wanted to make sure you had it on record as to what happened. Because, you know, I said, certainly in my career, you know, you see various frivolous lawsuits. Somebody tries to sue the state for something. I said, I just wanted to know if that happened, you know where you need to come. She goes, okay, great. Well, I got a text the next day from her and she goes, does this look familiar? And it was that picture.

And I went. In vice. No, no, actually. This is before anything happened. This is two days after the whole extraction. And I looked at it. I went, where did you get that? And she said, well, the maintenance guys.

Why? So I can only imagine she called the maintenance people and they were like, well, oh my God, what? And he probably told his wife, well, somehow she found it on Facebook and found this picture and, you know, and sent it. The picture that was snapped. Yeah. Yeah. The picture that you see on vice. And I looked at, I said, where did you get that? And she said, well, the maintenance guys, why found it on facebook i was like and i asked said do you have any idea who posted that and um she didn't but uh that was the first time i saw the picture and quite us i showed kristin we had a chuckle i sent it to my

my boys you know said oh yeah here's here's a picture and that's where I thought it was pretty much going to end. And then I, Kristen, I'm not on Facebook, I'm on Instagram, but she started seeing all these Facebook posts. And then people she knows started reposting it and, you know, resharing it. Pretty soon you're like Sully, that guy that landed that plane. Exactly. And i'm just like reading things i'm like oh geez that's you know it's just things are sort of getting out of you know because the people are making assumptions of this and that so uh i just sort of went well it is what it is and we'll just not worry about and then somebody sent me that i think it was the cowboy daily or whatever it was cowboy

state daily and then corinne sent me the vice article and i was like oh yeah well or no i told her i said it's yeah it's on something called vice it's you know i assume it's some little sort of online rag yeah she goes well no actually they're it's a big online It's a big online, right? It's a big online news organization. And then what clarified it for me was she goes, well, like on HBO Max or, you know, some of the streaming smart TVs, you'll see an app called Vice. And I'm like, yeah, I've never paid any attention to it. She goes, well, that's it. I went, oh, okay. So then I went in and read the article.

I'm like, well, they did some, they did some work. They did, did some analysis. They actually tracked down, finally got to FWP and, you know, that's where they found out. Well, somebody, you know. But they hadn't found you. Yeah. Well, they did because I called them. They just didn't share my name, which I, which, you know, I guess I appreciate.

But, but long story short, I just, you know, we were coming back from a long road trip, and Kristen's like, oh, my God, somebody's, a son of somebody, of a friend of hers reposted it. And so she had to text him and say, you know, that's Joe in the picture. He's like, what the hell? And she's, yeah, long story, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I was just sort of trying to let this go. And then it was about maybe a week or two later that my son sent me a text and link to the podcast said hey steven rella just talked about the shithouse extraction on this podcast. I went, what? And then now here we are. And then because of my buddy, Bruce, getting ahold of Corinne. Yeah. Yeah.

And now you know the whole story. And I don't know. I mean, I just kind of blabbed about the story, but if you have questions or, and you ask some, but I just was trying to let this thing just sort of fade away into the sunset. Yeah.

But it's just it's such an interesting um scenario and there's some and uh and i appreciate your efforts on his behalf yeah well i'm sure he probably appreciates it more and you um and i also appreciate that you're you don't you're not going out of your way to uh to identity. And I respect his desire for anonymity. But are you guys in touch? No. No. No.

No. Two ships in a night. Two ships in a night. It was a one night stand. We went camping just this last week. And Joe and Christian, Dorothy and I, and another couple, we were over in Lincoln. You guys get around. Yeah.

Yeah. We just went over camping. It's kind of really good. It's big circles. And there's a vault toilet there at this little campground. And so I go walking over to the vault toilet and I thought, hey, Joe, come here and show me how this thing works. I mean, because I didn't know you could take the pedestal off.

Yeah. This thing. And so he goes, well, this is a Forest Service one. He says, I I didn't know you could take the pedestal off. Yeah. The thing. And so he goes, he goes, well, this is a forest service one. He says, I'm not sure it's the same thing.

He says, but he walks in, Joe walks in and just kind of bear hugs the pedestal and pops right off. Oh, so you don't even need tools. No, no.

It just comes right off. It just slides off. Yeah, they just slide off. And I looked at that and I thought. And you said, Dorothy, go get my camp chair.

I said, I looked at that and I, and so Joe. I need two pieces of firewood and a camp chair. Yeah. Joe looks, Joe's standing there. I'm standing there. Lowell's standing there. And we both look kind of down this cement oval hole, which like Joe said, it's about two feet by three

feet or give or take. And we both just kind of glanced in there. It's like peering into a volcano. Yeah. And we both just kind of stood back and went, oh, God. Then the whole campfire conversation at night was, what would it take for you to go down into a vault toilet? Yeah, that's my question to everybody.

Would you do it for your phone? And I'm thinking to myself, okay, so a smartphone is a high end, $1,000. If somebody said, I'll give you $1, dollars to crawl down in there, I'd be like, nope. But I think that there's, there's issues of, um, it's really inconvenient to lose your phone. I dropped mine this winter, not down a vault toilet, but I dropped mine down an ice fishing hole.

Oh. And you know, it's like, you're not, the thing that occurs to that occurs you isn't well there goes a thousand bucks yeah what occurs to you is like oh all my contacts are on there yeah like all the things that it's lost the inconvenience they can't transfer it now yeah i can't call my wife now yeah do you i mean like it's it's not it's not money it's just like oh really so i feel that i would honestly there's plenty of people that $1,000 would weigh. I would go down there and grab it. And I've had, I raised three kids.

You get to where your relationship to excrement, having babies, just changes a lot, man. Yeah. It's like a familiar excrement, right? At least it's family excrement. Yeah, it's family excrement. It's not, you know. General. General public excrement, yeah. Yeah, no, it's family excrement. It's not, you know. General. General public excrement, yeah.

Yeah, no, it's very different. I don't mean to draw like a total parallel between what's in that hole and raising kids. Just saying, you know, just that everything kind of changes over time. And if I had dropped, rather than going down an ice fishing hole, if I had dropped it in the vault toilet, I don't know that I would get in there. And when pressed, I'm pretty crafty about stuff like that. I feel like I would have fashioned up.

I would have gotten some paracord and a couple willow limbs and fashioned up a tong. Or make like a little fishnet thing. Yep. Big salad tong, fishnet. I don't know. But I wouldn't have been like, ah, there goes my phone.

Yeah. You know what I mean? I would have been in there figuring it out. I would have had Yanni, I would have hanged Yanni down. I would have grabbed Yanni by his ankles and lowered him down in there. I think you're the lighter weight one, bud. I think I would have been hanging you in that hole. I was like, I can't hold it any longer, Yanni.

You're slipping. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. So, you's crazy. Yeah. So, you know, I did, you know, I could do that with her, you know, because she's tiny. Just drop me down in there. You guys could have a little service.

Yeah. Yeah. That's right. A phone extraction service. Contract ourselves out to, you know, different government agencies. Drive around and stop for specialty cocktails. That would be some of our retirement money. We could use that for retirement money.

Start saving up money for the 33rd anniversary. That's right. That's right. Well, on behalf of Americans, on behalf of Montanans, thanks for fishing that guy out of the toilet. Oh, yes, you're welcome. And I hope the guy never does that again. I'm pretty sure he won't.

But if he does, I can't guarantee I'll be there. But to step up with no derision, no condescension, and step up and help a man out of a toilet. That's American elbow grease. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, thanks for coming to tell the story. That was good.

You're welcome. Got any final thoughts on that one, Yanni? No, I bet he's got one of those fancy lanyards now on his phone. Hanging around his neck. Or like those old chain drive wallets. Just get one to hold your phone on there. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, or the belt. Again, I appreciate you guys coming in. Hope you enjoy your retirement. Bruce, how long, you and Dorothy, you guys been married how long? We've been married 25 years. 25 years. All right. Yeah.

Love it. Yep. Yep. And I've been retired. You guys still get along? We do. We do. As long as I listen to everything she tells me.

That's good. Yeah. You know what? I got one last favor. Hit us with your best piece of marriage advice. Best? Each couple. I would say for Dorothy and I, what works the best is we allow each other to do the things that interest each other.

So we allow each other to be individuals. You mean you participate in it or you give them room to go do what they want to do? Exactly. Both, to be honest with you. Okay. Dorothy hit it with us. He does a lot of fishing and a lot of hunting that doesn't include me. And I have some of the things I like to do that I don't include him.

But we also do a lot of things together as well. So what's your number one marriage advice? Allowing each other space. Oh, so you guys kind of have the same philosophy. Absolutely, yeah. Joe? Well, he took my thunder.

You're going to say the same thing? Really? So this is like a really important component of a long marriage. Well, yeah, I think it's important to have time away. For sure. You know, and go do's important to have time away. For sure. You know, and go do the things you're interested in. And, you know, I can, I do what we call guy trips, you know, hunting, fishing, you know, whatever. And she does girl trips, you know, takes off and goes somewhere and might be a weekend, might be a week or whatever, however long.

But I, you know, the old absence makes the heart grow fonder. Or yonder. Yeah. So, you know, as soon as you said that, I went, yeah, it's this. And I just think it's really, really important, you know, to do that. Kristen, hit us with your marriage advice. Yeah, I would say, yeah. So my girl's trips that I do are very important to me.

And so are his guy trips. And then we do stuff together, just the two of us. And then we have a group, you know, of couples that we do things with that is also really fun. And then our kids. So I was brought up like that. My parents were married 60-some years. So they kind of did the same thing. So I had that to go off of.

So hopefully, we have twin boys. So hopefully, I think they see how we interact and everything. And I think it just flows down, right? Yep. Everything flows down to your kids and how they watch and everything like that. So enjoy your time together. Oh, yeah, yeah. Go find time to do your own thing.

Pursue your own interest. Which I'm sure you guys all do, right? Yeah, a little bit. I'm kind of thinking you do. When the mood strikes me. I'm kind of thinking that, yeah. Yes. All right.

Well, thanks so much for coming on. I think this is the final definitive word. Unless the individual emerges, but at this point we got the full story. Yeah. Yes. All right. Well, thanks so much for coming on. I think this is the final definitive word, unless the individual emerges. But at this point, we got the full story. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, well, thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.

And glad to finally share the story, at least. Get it off your chest. Get it off my chest. That's right. Put it behind you. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, guys.

Thanks, guys. Thanks, guys. OnXH is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free

three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com meet