Ice Cave Survivor | I Shouldn't Be Alive S01 E10 | Fresh Lifestyle

a day on the ski slopes turns into every parent's nightmare come on let's go stranded in an icy wilderness hopes of rescue fade a father faces a heartbreaking choice to wait for rescue or go for help leaving his young son alone in a frozen cave on the mountain hardest decision i've ever made to leave a child childhood behind [Music] [Music] a mountain ski resort in northwest turkey we have boats that you laced up u.s air force lieutenant colonel mike couillard is taking a few hours off to go skiing with his two sons mark is 12 years old don't hit me in the head matthew is 10. the family is based in turkey where mike is part of operation provide comfort after the first gulf war the american air force flew thousands of missions to protect the kurds of northern iraq [Music] while mike takes the boys skiing his wife mary stays at home with daughter marisa a lot of people we know are going but it's mostly dads and their sons and i'll stay back and i'll keep my race a jeweled myself tonight mike and matthew can hang out and and mark can be with his friends and it'll be a great father-son day for mike today's a rare break from duty and an opportunity for a boy's day out he and the boys are traveling from their home in the turkish capital ankara up to the remote mountain resort of cartel kaya by american standards cartalcaya is not a real big mountain it's about six thousand feet we've been there once and we hadn't really totally explored the mountain but it was uh you know certainly a good place for us to go with the family [Music] i thought well what a great time for uh my sons and i to get some bonding time matthew's got a quiet strength and uh heart of gold just cares about people mark's always been the you know very curious one very adventurous after lunch mike and matthew head back up the mountain while mark stays behind to ski with his friends matthew and i were together and mark and his friends gonna go on their own for a while he said that him and matt were gonna ski together and that was the last time i saw him that day [Music] we were pretty tired from skiing all day and the resort was about to close so we decided to go on one last run and take three different lifts all the way up to the top of the mountain we've been skiing in colorado where you have a nice sunny day and then you see these uh wispy clouds rolling around the top of the mountain and that's kind of what it was starting to look like the weather at the top was much worse than at the bottom the mountain of cartel kaya is rarely welcoming and by the time mike and matthew reach the top of the lift a solid bank of fog has rolled in from the black sea locals call it the mister it produces a white out and the ski slope back down to the resort is no longer visible there's two different paths you could take the left or the right it just was getting harder and harder to keep side of the trail snow just kept getting thicker and thicker we started to realize that no one skied down this hill in quite some time realizing that they've skied down the wrong way mike and matthew start climbing back up the hill i kept thinking that we would get to the top of the hill we'd look down and see the resort the hotel the wide open expanse and we just found another hill up in front of us instead of going back up the way they came down mike has led his son round to the far side of the mountain they're heading away from the ski resort into an icy wilderness [Music] probably by now it's between 3 30 and 4 and it's already starting to look like the sun's going down and it's getting getting on towards twilight it's okay i'm good down at the ski resort the bus home is about to leave mark hasn't seen his dad and brother since lunchtime uh when i got to the bus my brother and dad weren't there so i figure you know the bus will have to wait a minute but they'll show up and uh they didn't we've gone miles by now i just knew we couldn't go on matthew was a just totally exhausted cold and soaking wet we were in a complete whiteout and the temperature was dropping by the minute i just couldn't believe the situation i'd gotten myself into i mean it was like one moment we were we were having a nice time skiing in the sun and then the next we were facing this terrible situation we're already looking at darkness and and we're still not anywhere close to being able to connect with this bus close to exhaustion mike and matthew struggle on through heavy snow for seven hours as the temperature on the mountain drops hypothermia and frostbite become a real danger [Music] as the bus drove away it was pretty much that moment when i knew that something was really wrong and i didn't know if i would see them ever again the darkness on the mountain closes in as the blizzard rages on mike has no idea which way to go or whether to keep matthew moving we can't keep doing this he's just done and i can't carry him i make this decision anyway let's stop hello hello mary it's wanda at the ski resort mike's colleague major wanda villiers is looking after mark look mary there's a bit of a problem my friend wanda was on the phone and she said that mike and matthew had not come down off the mountain well where are they well we just don't know i've had a lot of survival training you know i knew how to make a shelter so i decided to go up the slope a bit and see if i can find a good tree to spend the night underneath just took my ski and wove it in between the branches put our ski poles in there and branches off the surrounding trees and just wove those in and made kind of like a little roof the lion's share of your body temperature can be soaked up by just laying on cold ground so it's very important to get a layer of pine boughs underneath us what comes from the back of my mind like a ton of bricks uh is the full weight of the situation hey we're gonna be out here despite the conditions a search and rescue team is sent onto the mountain as i was looking out the window kind of hoping they would see them coming down the mountain i could hear the loudspeakers playing turkish pop music on all the ski runs hoping that my dad and brother would hear it and find a find the hotel by now it's uh late into the night and you know i'm just thinking you know how is mary gonna take this news that we haven't come back we're settling in i'm formulating a plan what am i going to do tomorrow because tomorrow's got to go on and we've got to get our get ourselves out of this mess mike and matthew have passed a night on the mountain in a howling blizzard and freezing temperatures mike had decided they should stay put as dawn breaks their survival depends on being found soon [Music] i've sort of kept it from arisa that they didn't come down off the mountain where's dad come and sit down here but i know it's morning now and the phone hasn't rung in the middle of the night so i have to tell her with daylight special forces from mike's airbase swing into action this time their job is not to protect the kurds but to look for one of their own turkish troops with their local knowledge join the operation mike's commanding officer is leading it hello mary it's ed fitzgerald here i just wanted to update you in this situation mike's colonel lets me know that the search has already started that people are actually looking for them he's going to coordinate the search from the lodge there at the ski resort search makes national news but it's focusing on the area surrounding the ski slopes mike and matthew are in fact miles away after an uncomfortable night matthew awakes cold wet and still exhausted we woke up kind of groggy that morning i i think because we had slept off and on the whole night in the daylight i was able to see there was like an opening in the rock mike's survival training kicks in when lost find shelter and stay where you are it's a cave we've been sitting on top of it all night come on son they can stay in the cave and wait to be rescued i should save that later here wow that's wet huh all right take mine that you know what i don't think i can escape today that's okay because we're staying here tonight first rule of survival give people a chance to find us yeah they'll be looking for us right now how will they find us this snow will stop soon they'll find us i knew there were certain things that i could do to enhance our chances of being seen just took my skis and planted them as a big x the international distress signal for skiers i just hoped that there would be people come up and see those and they saw the skis and they would be able to find us mike and matthew have been in freezing temperatures for 24 hours the cave offers protection from the blizzard outside but little else it was at that point i realized i was already getting that first warning sign of frostbite which is this little white callus uh build up on your hands kind of a waxy let's get look off these boots were not doing a good job of keeping our feet warm having looked at my own hands and seeing the condition i was you and i decided you know maybe i didn't investigate matthew's feet and i can't hit my toes he was starting to experience some of the first stages of frostbite there on his feet too look at your toes get the circulation go [Music] i'm not gonna put your boots back on here give me your scarf inside the cave was cold enough for water to freeze the temperature drop below freezing here we are in this tiny cave this little crack in the mountain in a raging blizzard and we're both in the early stages of frostbite if we didn't get help we were just going to die on this mountain the ground search is cooled off as night falls it can't begin again until morning thanks a lot bye-bye i'm getting phone calls um well it started out once a day but that just wasn't enough no news yet honey there's just too many hours where we didn't know what was going on and so you get your hopes tweaked every once in a while and it just seems like all the little hopes just could keep getting put out [Music] one of our immediate needs was just keeping ourselves hydrated the bottom line was that you really shouldn't be eating snow better stop don't eat anymore you gradually lower your body temperature to the point where you get hypothermic and you're making your situation worse by just trying to keep yourselves alive what was that just a small animal nothing to worry about remember when we were in the mediterranean all that italian food and you and mark you just wanted to eat burgers dad i thought they would have come for us by now yeah yeah i'm sure they'll find us tomorrow yeah that was real fun it was nice to just focus a little bit on those little stories of the day and get our mind off this terrible situation that we're in as dawn breaks on the mountain the storm clears thanks snowplows have opened the way to the resort and mark is able to get home i'm keeping sane because i'm thinking mike would never leave matthew i'm thinking he's had survival training i'm real hungry i'm realizing they probably don't have food but maybe some of the snacks they took they just had stuffed in their pockets it's our last one did you hear that helicopter come on dad please go all of a sudden a shot of adrenaline took over and i all action again scrambled outside and to my amazement this helicopter just literally seemed like it was flying out of the mist but as suddenly as this helicopter appeared out of the mist it was gone and it was almost a hopeless case i just was too far down into this little valley to be seen the good news was i knew they were looking and i knew they would be back the helicopters called in for the search were actually part of operation provide comfort pretty sophisticated helicopters and i was just so excited that they were able to get something besides people on the ground looking for them [Music] quick matt you might come back dad i can't get my food i'll help you [Music] don't cry sorry dad it was one of ours it was a blackhawk no doubt and next time i'll make sure they see us to see this blackhawk was a solid sign that they were putting everything into the search i knew that would be a challenge if they ever came back that i'd have to figure out a better way to be spotted how's your feet i can't feel them [Music] about every 30 minutes to an hour i would take his feet and put him on my belly and let the core body temperature warm him up it was also an opportunity to periodically check and see how his feet were doing and i could see that they were still getting worse you want to try standing up the circulation going oh that that let's just stay here mike can't carry matthew to safety i'm gonna take your boot okay so he pins all his hopes on rescue i figured use these boots that he's probably not going to use that's bright and sunny outside and it just seemed like now might be a good time to go and do a little more exploring mike knows that the improved weather will make the search easier but they're hard to spot down amongst the trees i had everything in my power to get them to see me and if i was to be seen i needed to get up above where we were and i i thought you know if i could go across the stream and climb up on top of that ridge i figured it'd be a lot easier to be spotted but climbing to the top of the ridge would mean leaving matthew alone and mike's not prepared to consider doing that yet the search is still concentrated around the resort mike and matthew are miles away on the other side of the mountain that's the fourth day and all of a sudden we heard this helicopter sound i didn't have much time to get outside i didn't even have time to put my boots on [Music] it came seemingly out of nowhere i could even see the american flag painted on the side it just flew right over the top of us and was gone it never made two passes mike realizes that the helicopters aren't looking for them where they are they're flying over on their way to a search grid on the other side of the mountain my hopes took a plunge into despair mad listen there's a ridge i'm gonna try and get to the top of it maybe see a way out what's the point we got to stay positive dad you're wrong we're never gonna get out of here you're gonna die here mike now faces the unthinkable matthew can't move mike won't leave without him but if they wait to be rescued they may die together [Music] mike's survival strategy is to wait to be found he thinks the ski resort and therefore rescue is close by and visible from the top of the ridge but as the days pass his and matthew's conditions are deteriorating i kind of did this morbid calculation that you know it'd be better to come back without my feet than not at all i kept putting myself in that situation where i've left a family behind without a father i just couldn't face the reality of that i found myself looking at matthew as he lay there sleeping and he just looked so peaceful almost like a little angel as he lay there sleeping and i became aware of just how fragile he was one of the new developments is the office of special investigations is coming over well they just wanted pictures you know and as current as i could get them they're talking about putting things in the paper and i'm wondering are they trying to figure out if they've found the bodies what they would look like or something next morning during his daily explorations mike though weakened by the cold and lack of food decides to tackle the ridge we're hearing helicopter sounds for a long time they've come by and they've flown directly overhead but primarily they're over in this one area that's probably where the ski resort is they've done the calculation how far is a father and a ten-year-old child gonna [Music] go i tried it several times and it seemed every time i did that there were big boulders and trees falling and i just could not get up on top of this ridge yeah i understand but we still have the hueys right the search is winding down the american military withdraws leaving the turkish soldiers to continue using less sophisticated aircraft colonel fitzgerald is telling me that they're going to change the type of helicopter that they're going to have out and it's just going to map out the area where they think they are so that they can go back and find their bodies in the spring mike and matthew's disappearance is still a major news story colonel fitzgerald calls a press conference in the resort hotel if we do not find any more information in the next 24 to 36 hours then we may consider stopping the search and assume for this particular location that the bodies are underneath the snow i'm just infuriated at that thought because i just don't think they're gone they shouldn't give up can i get you a cup colonel fitzgerald has come over to the house they want to look at the options again mary he's talking about well maybe they skied over a ridge and didn't even realize in the dark it's kind of snow coverage he's got pictures of all this tons and tons of snow and you can't even tell trees are trees and of course it is pretty um pretty bad looking mike wouldn't leave matt they're waiting for us to find them i don't know i just feel like i should have a sense if they're gone that i would know it mike's first attempt to reach the top of the ridge has failed but he knows that getting there offers the one chance he has of saving matthew they didn't come will we get out of here i'm gonna buy you that the biggest hamburger you've ever seen a basket of fries a bucket of coke you know what dad really what i want is a pizza [Music] well the turkish government had decided to do one last big push they were going to send out 500 turkish commandos to search for mike and matthew i just can't believe the amount of people involved in searching for them on the other hand i'm worried if they think they're just looking for bodies and it's hard to keep being helpful silence on the mountain there's been no sign of rescue helicopters for days mike realizes that staying put is not going to get them rescued but matthew can't move and his condition is getting even worse i was not pleased with what i saw even more of this waxy gray flesh that was not good as careful as i was being is still not enough how about that can you feel that no i can't feel anything [Music] a helicopter dead sounds like a huey [Music] it's not worth it's sun it's too far away the turkish government's last search attempt has found no signs of mike and matthew the rescue team doubts they could have survived for seven days in these conditions the search is cooled off that i'll still be able to kick them out your foot's gonna be fine son i don't know the question go on what's it like to you know to die i didn't want him going there not gonna die but i sort of had to deal with that i felt like if this gets worse and worse and worse and we look at death i need to prepare him for [Music] that [Music] friday afternoon my friend wanda comes in and she says that they're thinking of sending mark and maurice and i back to the states maybe it's time we think about getting you guys home to be near family this is my family wanda i'm adamant that i'm not going [Music] after seven days i began to wonder well how long will i even have the use of these hands i decided to start writing a note to my family it sure be nice to tell the people i love uh like my wife and family you know how i feel about them [Music] you want me to write anything from you okay matthew has just got that tender heart marissa i wish i hadn't fought with her so much he's a real quiet kid but he's deep too and that love is coming out in his words kill mom she's a good cook yeah back to his family he wanted me to put that in there you know what just tell them i love them dad david we don't have to do it today what are you doing i thought maybe you could warm my feet mike knows they cannot survive much longer he also knows that it's up to him to find a way out [Music] i knew every time i put those boots back on i was taking some already frostbitten tissue and aggravating it and doing damage [Music] i'm gonna go back up onto the ridge and take another look mike attempts once again to climb the ridge i knew that um at some point the search is going to be called off and i'd already tried several times but maybe i can try one more time and get up on this ridge [Music] from the top mike hopes to get a sense of where he and matthew are [Music] i don't know why i was successful but this time i was able to get up i was able to see a panorama to my surprise the view doesn't reveal the ski resort instead he sees a distant clump of cabins but to go down to them might mean there was no way back up to matthew i had this debate what if you go to these cabins and you get there and there's nobody there and now you're in a worse position and the other voice was saying well what if you don't go what if you just stay here and die [Music] i'm losing energy by the day i'm getting weaker by the moment i sort of calculated at some point i'm gonna maybe go for help it was kind of an hour or nothing thing the only way to decide this is to put this to matthew and see how he's with this listen i've seen some cabins i think i can get to i'm just not sure i can leave you behind [Music] you know what dad [Music] maybe you should go because if we stay here they'll just be finding our bodies it was like he was giving me permission i'm gonna leave you my code okay don't try and leave the cave i'll be back before nightfall hardest decision i've ever made to leave this child of mine behind [Music] is tearing my heart out to do that even knowing that it was the logical best thing to do mike skis down to a trail he spotted from the top of the ridge now i was finally getting up and doing something about this that was an awesome adrenaline rush if you will just the physical act of moving myself down this trail was carrying me along mentally as well [Music] [Music] the idea comes up to have a service of hope on the monday eight days after they're missing absolutely it wasn't going to be anything like a funeral for us it was going to be the last big push in the spiritual battle [Music] boy i was really tired i'd have to stop every five minutes just to catch my breath it's a much more weakened state than i thought if i could just get there there would be people there waiting for me to send help back to my son well as i get closer to this village i'm looking for telephone lines power lines signs that there really are people there i don't see smoke coming out of the chimneys i don't see any snowmobiles all i see is animal tracks it's pretty obvious that there's nobody there [Music] if i can get a fire started smoke comes out of this area that's clearly been abandoned that'll be a sure sign to the searchers that they need to investigate i found a box and it had one match in it and it was like this is my one chance i only get one i decided to wait and i thought well what's in the other cabins i found a bottle of kerosene but i found no matches there either i went back got ready to strike my one match every strike i took it was fizzling and it was not igniting and i when i finally wore out all the sulfur on that match it was like my hopes just fizzled with that last attempt and um and i knew it wasn't going to get that fire started i'm tortured by the thought of of my son alone in this cave you know and it's dark and i'm picturing what he's going through and my worst fears is he's you know maybe he's just lost it the wildlife was pretty noisy i just tried not to think about it as much as possible i tried sleeping as long as i could he wasn't there and i was really scared off and on i was sleeping and i was in just a torment just knowing that he was in a worse place than me [Music] i woke up in such excruciating pain and i imagine what it must be like to be burned because frostbite is very much like a freezer burn my feet had thawed and expanded to a third bigger there's no way i could physically get these boots back on i felt like a helpless child you know you know i've lost control and now i can't i that now there's no way i'm gonna get back up to uh to where matthew is there's no way i can get back matthew is alone in the cave now mike too is trapped alone exhausted and unable to move i drifted off to sleep with this prayer on my lips like god just help us because it doesn't seem like anything i've done is getting it done [Music] two days had gone by and i didn't know what kind of mental state he would be in let alone his physical state i had to let him go i can't take care of him anymore [Music] i just came to the thought that i don't know what i'd do if i had to go back and face mary without matthew with me [Music] i'd run out of water i grabbed a couple pots and pans and crawled my way to the front door to just scoop some snow off the steps [Music] a band of loggers has been clearing the trail of fallen branches brought down by the snow and by pure chance they stumble on mike there was a man at a shortwave radio and they were telling me what we're in contact with these people that are out looking for your son [Music] i knew that they were doing everything they could to go find him [Music] what by now i mean it's a sea of humanity people are just flooding around this little cabin and i can see the sea of people parting and they're carrying this little package that was my son [Music] things were happening pretty quick you know they were getting in touch with all the embassy folks finally they put mary on and well i said hey dear uh we've been separated a little bit matthew and i but we're okay little did i know she had no idea that we'd been separated for days it was probably just as well [Laughter] after an operation to remove one toe and part of another matthew's feet were saved he and mike made a full recovery the family now lives in colorado springs [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: All Real

Views: 179,211

Keywords: full episodes, reality show, fashion, style, beauty tips, lifestyle, I shouldn't be alive, survival, survival story, episode 1, series 1, i shouldn't be alive full episodes, survivor, luxury yacht, lost, survival skills, castaway, how to survive, shocking, shocking story, documentary, documentaries, documentaire, full documentary, free documentary

Id: Ejed9RKI7GQ

Length: 48min 55sec (2935 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021