These Men Crash Landed Into A Mountain Side And Survived | I Shouldn't Be Alive S6 EP4 | Wonder

you to friends enjoy a sightseeing flight to cross scenic Alaska before an unplanned detour turns to disaster I'll never forget him looking at me and saying we're gonna crash and then there's a very loud noise that the lights went out seriously injured and stranded in the middle of nowhere they must hike to safety through terrain infested with grizzly bears there is no pepper spray there was no shotgun there was nothing between us and them don't stand a chance against animal like that [Music] in a desperate bid for survival their only hope is to rely on each other Gary and I were going home are we were gonna die try it [Music] [Music] Oh the Knik River Valley in southern Alaska an area of untamed natural beauty overlooked by the majestic Chugach mountain range it's most famous feature is a spectacular 45 kilometer long Knik glacier to take your a strut Gary in nearby Palmer two friends are getting ready for a sightseeing flight to the classroom okay clear on this side taking the pilot's seat is Dave Akers a veteran flyer with thousands of hours under his belt I've been flying aircraft since 1974 it's rewarding it's challenging really love to fly [Music] yeah and this is what I'm really gonna miss Texan Gary Null came north two years ago to work in Alaska's oil industry and quickly became firm friends with fellow outdoorsmen Dave really appreciate this day we went out and did a lot of sightseeing together we both had a mutual admiration for the outdoors I would just jump at every opportunity I had to go fly with him I really haven't known Gary all that long but you know sometimes you just click Dave's been teaching Gary the basics of flying but this is their last lesson for a while Gary and his family are returning home to Texas hey Gary there you go let's the 80 kilometer round trip should take no more than two hours Dave and Gary planned to be back before dusk we were in just real remote scenery no powerlines no roads no human intervention in the land at all Alaska is just beautiful it's called the last frontier and it truly is the last frontier it's just you can get away from civilization very easily up there the weather stays fine as they track the river south eastwards and after an hour they reach their destination the stunning connect I see [Music] it's probably some of the most magnificent scenery that I can relate to and I've seen a lot of country in my life [Music] time's up Gary he gets aligned the plane while it's still daylight Dave turns for home and as we headed back towards the airport I remember glancing over to the my right shoulder and seeing this mouth of this valley just opened up to our right there dave has never noticed this valley before come on it might not be no next time intrigued he descends to take a closer look but what Dave doesn't know is that this is a notorious spot where over a dozen planes have crashed before I had a lot of trust in the airplane and a lot of trusted my ability just wanted to kind of get a feel for the environment 15 minutes later Dave starts his climb out the valley was back behind us remember Dave just giving it full throttle we don't seem to be going up I did a quick instrument scan and noticed that I was going down at 200 feet a minute I thought something's not right I immediately knew we were in a downdraft the aircraft is caught in a column of rapidly descending cold air it's 145 horsepower engine can't generate enough lift to overcome the powerful downward force the plane is now plummeting towards the ground at over 10 meters per second I needed to keep my wings level and get my airspeed as low as possible because we were gonna impact they had no choice but to accept that I'll never forget him looking at me and saying we're gonna crash the impact was tremendous just loud and I thought oh no what have I done just fill the plane skidding and sliding and then a big noise and then the lights went out after skidding for 30 meters the plane has come to rest over 1200 meters up a remote mountainside one of my first thoughts was uh Here I am covered in blood I had a hard time focusing my eyes miraculously both men have survived the crash but Dave appears to be unconscious I look around and I see Dave laid-back in his seat and his eyes are just rolled up in his head I'm thinking and this is not good yeah me immediately start yelling at him trying to get his attention they talk to me man oh he was incoherent but the injuries are not the only problem gasoline was just pouring out the force of the impact has ruptured the planes fuel tanks the wreck could catch fire and explode at any moment Gary must get his injured friend to safety I'm pulling the tugging on him and trying to get him out the plane he's not responding didn't have time to think on what we're gonna die or whatever I just knew we gotta get away from the plane [Music] just kept yelling in come on day we've got to move we gotta get out of here Gary finally manages to track Dave clear of the wreckage and out of danger [Music] and the next thing I knew I'm staring at the tundra oh I recall thinking that were two very lucky people to be alive against all odds they even Gary have survived the crash but both have sustained multiple injuries I remember having a lot of a lot of pain up in my right chest and shoulder area and then I looked up at Gary and we had a pretty good gash in his forehead okay okay Gary doesn't know it but he has a serious skull fracture dave has broken two ribs and fractured his collarbone we needed to get some help quick but nobody knew where we are at I immediately started to feel guilty for what I had done the unplanned detour means they're well off the usual flight path and they've left their mobile phones back at the airfield their last hope is the planes high frequency radio but to reach it means braving the fuel soaked fuselage the gasoline is still just pouring out the claim and we just determined we had to take a chance Gary grabs vital emergency gear while Dave checks the radio a single spark could ignite the fuel turning the wreck into a lethal fireball I reached over to the master switch they turned on the radio to see if there was anything there there wasn't any power I was just dead it's a devastating blow out here it could take weeks for rescuers to find them now there's only one option left they must walk off the mountain while they're still strong enough so we gathered up everything we had the man decide to head for the Knik River where they hope to hit a logging road but they set off woefully ill-equipped to survive in the harsh Alaskan wilderness I was dressed in my shorts t-shirt my 10 shoes on we just thinking we're gonna go out for a quick sightseeing trip but it's not the way to be dressed when you got no wilderness of Alaska an inventory of the back they salvaged from the plane reveals little by way of supplies [Music] we had a little emergency bag that had some peanut butter some bandages some tarps some oak towels a couple of sleeping bags it was pretty limited but we're able to utilize some of the things in it before we started down the hill I've made a sling for Dave's arm [Music] then I pour a towel in half and got the bleeding on my forehead stopped but Dave and Gary are taking an almighty risk they've crashed in an area with the largest brown bear population in North America often weighing in at over 300 kilos and standing at over two metres tall the native brown bear is a fearsome predator capable of ripping through flesh and bone and they can smell blood up to 30 kilometers away Here I am covered in blood Dave is injured and we're in bear country with no firearm with 40 kilometers to cover to the nearest settlement the chances of survival are slim I would estimate we probably traveled to two and a half miles away from the plane right the goal was so tough and Dave was hurting Dave smashed ribcage makes every movement seemingly painful the pain was pretty intense so at that point I needed to rely on Gary's Direction here above 1,000 meters nighttime temperatures can drop below freezing and as the Sun begins to set both men start to feel bitterly cold looking for ways to stay warm so we made some makeshift ponchos Dave was really struggling when we decided to stop for the night [Music] concerned that pushing Dave on could exacerbate his injuries Gary decides to make camp for the night we laid out one of the big tarps out and then pulled the second tarp up overs they even Gary desperately need rest but they know that many of Alaska's fiercest animals come out to hunt at night I wanted to really be just on alert listening for bears weak unarmed and covered in blood the men would be an easy meal for determined predators gary had had a bear encounter earlier that year where he actually had to shoot the bear if he's gonna come get you he's gonna come get you and you're defenseless fearing for their lives both men's thoughts turn to their families we love our wives and we love our kids and that's where we wanted to be I could only imagine at that point they must have thought well you're probably probably dead we're so compelled to get off that mountain for that reason just to let them know that we're all right Gary and I were going home our we were gonna die try it as soon as there was enough lap determined that we needed to get moving you know you gotta get home pretty soon I hear this hey Dave we gotta go we gotta get out of here break you're hurting and you're tired I laid there for what seemed to me like three seconds but if I can keep moving in this you can too he was getting really just rigid from his injuries had to convince Dave sometimes that we needed to get up and going yeah Dave's injured body craves rest but Gary knows that if they're to make it out alive they must get moving I was thinking that the best thing to do was to get up and start moving get the blood circulating and get get some warmth going help perhaps boost the morale just have a plan put something into action we had to backtrack out of the canyon that we flew up into but you know everything looks different on the ground than it does from the air the goal was so tough that Dave couldn't help from falling I mean he would fall on that shoulder several times and just grimace in pain [Music] when you got a lot of pain like that on one side or the other it's just really uncomfortable it's kind of hard to keep the balance but I needed to carry on [Music] Dave and Gary hoped that the Knik River will lead them back to civilization but to reach it they will have to navigate their way across 40 kilometers of treacherous terrain my concern really started growing there because they just don't know what's down in alder brush we had enough blood about us that I would have rather been a a moving target to a bear than a sitting target to a bear and then I spotted something moving up to our right and I just froze there was this huge grizzly we were literally just feet away from Dave and Gary are now face to face with a 300 kilo grizzly bear it's their worst nightmare [Music] you don't stand a chance against animal like that largest predator in North America they're up wind of the grizzly so it hasn't smoked them yet but should the wind change the scent of blood will surely attract this fearsome predator [Music] the two friends are in grave danger the bear was just prowling back and forth and then it turned back towards us we are obviously in his territory or in his domain I thought to myself hold still I River Gary Saint Lord helped the barracks turn the other way that's exactly what the bear did we're so relieved when that happened it just was like we could breathe again you know we both looked at each other and said this is not where we need to be right now it's a quiet as possible and we just want to cut back at a 45-degree angle well I just put some distance between us and that bear but remember looking back a few times wondering if there was anything following us [Music] and then we noticed a large area that had been stopped around it's freshen we were standing just feet away from this moose kill when a grizzly kills a moose it'll it'll take it and bury it and let it rot a little bit seen that mooses head and legs and stuff sticking out look around that was not a good feeling right there at that point Dave and Gary have accidentally stumbled into the heart of the grizzlys lair and I'm thinking oh great you know the parents right down the stream promise we're in it's a kitchen here and he or she would have been probably pretty aggressive if he thought we were invading on his on his killed brown bears are notoriously territorial and the men know this one could return at any moment there is no pepper spray there was no shotgun there was nothing between us and them and absolutely no protection whatsoever I'm thinking this bear is gonna come busting out of the woods any minute now between a bear and his kill was not the place to be and that's when we started moving off reeking of blood Dave and Gary are desperate to avoid another bear encounter bears are unpredictable you never know what it is this going to provoke them to attack you we were definitely in the position to have that happen at any moment one of the items we had was a bear whistle and we've just blown that pretty much all the time you don't want to surprise a bear that's the worst thing you can do your senses are really on high alert [Music] [Music] the men stumble onto the bank of a 10 meter wide river if they can reach the other side they should be out of the Bears territory Dave is the first to try and wade across [Music] as he starts to interview the creek I'm looking over my shoulder I'm looking for that big ol grizzly bear the water was ice-cold of course the whole balancing act with the pack and the pain and and everything was was challenging and then lost my footing and got pulled downstream I turn around look and Dave's gone [Music] I look down stream and there's Dave he washed downstream about 20 25 yards or so in the fast flowing torrent Dave's broken collarbone and ribs make trying to swim agony soon he's freezing cold and struggling just to keep his head above water [Music] [Music] Dave manages to drag himself to shallow water but on a day when the temperature was barely four degrees Celsius his body temperature is plummeting I'm thinking great this this is not good you know now he's gonna get hypothermia come on let's get you dry off Gary said you know you need to wring out all your clothes Dave decides the getting dry isn't that biggest concern we're still within proximity of where we just just seen this bear and I said no we'll just we'll just track hard and I'll just try to body heat it out Dave is risking hypothermia now more than ever the two friends need rescue me [Music] thirty kilometers away in Parma the men's wives have raised the alarm and an air search has been underway all day but the rescue teams are unaware that the two men are much higher of the mountains than anticipated and beyond the limits of their search area for now Dave and Gary are on their own yeah I remember Dave falling several times all right but he wouldn't complain you just get up keep on going and I could tell he's hurtin with every movement over the uneven terrain Dave's broken ribs threatened to puncture a lung if that happens before they reach safety he might not survive you could just feel the piercing inside in the chest and it was it was uncomfortable Dave is the one in pain but the men still don't realize that it's Gary who's in the most serious danger the skull fracture he suffered in the crash puts him at risk of a brain hemorrhage [Music] we're hiking hard here and we're sweating and we're putting out energy and it was just like you could never take on enough water I was so thirsty I didn't care if it was dirty I didn't care what was in it I was I was determined to get some moisture in my mouth and then we remembered we had a jar of peanut butter the peanut butter they retrieved from the plane is a godsend it's not much but it gives the men a desperately needed boost peanut butter was always good to eat you could feel a little pickup yeah it was just like a shot of energy so packet of protein and the sugars it was the first time I had probably eaten and well over 24 hours and I was I remember how good that peanut butter tasted the friends continue hiking south in a general direction of the Knik River there was a lot further journey than what we'd imagined every time you come over a rise you think it's gonna be we're gonna see it but the rough terrain and there were setting injuries make progress painfully slow we carried on for a couple hours our bodies were growing more and more exhausted at this point in Vietnam of different and we caught our first glimpse of the Knik River in Valois that was where we're trying to get to [Music] after hiking for more than 20 kilometers through the brutal Alaskan wilderness the two friends could see the river which they hope will lead them back to civilization right we decided it's time to go down and try to get out through the valley floor facing a long slow descent to the valley balloon they decide to take a shortcut but it means scrambling down a steep wooded slope it just got steeper and steeper and wetter and wetter and underbrush was just really green the ground was slippery you had to be careful of every step because you really break an ankle or twist and Nev you have to hang on to brush it was so steep that if you let go you're just gonna tumble out of control [Music] all of a sudden my feet slipped out from underneath me and I started sliding down the hill unable to stop himself dave is hurtling towards the edge of the 15-metre precipice we're picking up speed as the branches are going by I'm reaching out with my arm I look down and there's nothing underneath me [Music] fresh stopped solid and then I went to put my feet underneath me and there wasn't anything there and I looked down and it was another drop on down to the bottom finally I pulled myself up until I could get my feet underneath me [Music] and I have gone off of that they may not be sitting here I realized that was probably the worst mistake of the whole journey daven Gary's shortcut as badly backfired nice car exhausted from their exertions from the pain of their injuries they now have to climb nearly 150 meters back up a 45-degree slope that was a pretty demoralizing point right there was just trying to get back all the way up to where we started from it was pretty steep Dave is in a bad way the fall aggravated his broken ribs and now every breath is agony I was just grasping for air there was a concern there about what it was that was going to happen next with your body because you could feel things work working as they should be the grueling climb saps what little strength dave has left and now Gary's in trouble to think something weird is going on here [Music] got a good guy Banas it's really strange but I knew we had to keep on going doing it this way it's this way he's going why are we going south promise you it's this way I've normally got a great sense of direction but I'm thinking the the injuries to my forehead and we're beginning to take a toll Gary's growing confusion is a worrying symptom of his fractured skull and severe concussion up to this point he's taken the lead but now he realizes that it's his turn to rely on Dave [Music] at this point I decided to follow Dave's lead I mean he was seemed to be thinking clearly Gary needs urgent medical attention the search efforts continue but as the friends unplanned detour took them way off the usual flight path the search doesn't extend where they're stranded twenty-four hours after the crash Dave and Gary still haven't reached the Knik River their route back to civilization hi I got a rest then Gary catches sight of something through the trees and then now I can remember see him what I thought was a hunter but then it's odd it's not even hunting season Dave very where is it I saw hunt [Music] there's nothing there at this point I'm starting to understand that Gary's operating in some sort of a reduced mental capacity Gary's erratic behavior is worrying Dave for the first time he realizes that his friend's head injury could be life-threatening watching Gary go through that it increased my feelings of guilt for having caused the accident the first place it gave me a drive to want to do everything I could to make sure that we could get to some help quick the friends hike to safety just became a race against the clock Dave pushes on determined to get his friend the medical help he so desperately needs [Music] I turned around and there was no Giri I thought how can that be he was just here you know where did Gary go gary has disappeared [Music] his worsening head injury makes him completely reliant on his friend for survival [Music] Dave retraces his steps fearful of what he might find when I called him and he didn't answer come on then I called him again and he didn't answer that was a very low moment if Dave can't find his friend he will die Bobson his whistle went off [Music] he had dripped and fallen into brush it was just amazing to see Gary again I begin to taper off mainly due to the impact of my forehead and I really begin to hallucinate [Music] and I remember thinking at this point man I'm sure glad Dave was there with me because I did realize that he was thinking right the two men are tantalisingly close to the Knik River their route map to civilization come on keep going but Gary's condition is getting worse with every step he could slip into unconsciousness at any time but then I heard that sound of an aircraft [ __ ] it was headed right up George's it's a de Havilland beaver it's red I know the people who even operate the airplane it's that close I can see it between [Music] the plane is flying upriver towards the Knik glacier gary and dave scramble for the emergency flare they retrieved from that aircraft good timing just perfect he is coming right at us and shot the flare off right in front of the plane [Music] and I'm thinking it just doesn't get any better than that flair started to illuminate [Music] when it got to its crest the plane banked away a hundred eighty degrees away from us he never so much you saw it it was disheartening to me to see the plane fly off there has to be the golden moment for a rescue and it wasn't a golden moment it's a crushing blow Gary's survival chances just took a major hit [Music] the men stumble on but now even the terrain seems to conspire against them it is just nothing but tangled sticks and brush we literally couldn't see much more than about about fifty feet it's thick it's it's really thick I could really just feel a sinking feeling coming on me gonna take 10 times the effort to just to go 5 beat but now Gary has completely lost his grip on reality I would see camps campfires tents they were just vaporized that were just vanished there was nothing there as the light fades Dave starts to feel desperate he's convinced that Gary won't survive another night out here watching Gary not move as fast being quieter that was a real sinking feeling [Music] [Music] quietly I talked to God and prayed for our survival [Music] [Music] and then I hear car engines and I think no that's not car engines then I hear it again and then I hear a big roar see lights shining through the trees [Music] by some miracle Gary and Dave have stumbled onto a logging road and a car full of holidaymakers they come running up to a serene it was just most awesome thing I was very blessed to be alive after 33 hours alone in the wilderness day even Gary a finally rescued we were gone home it's remarkable that we survived the crash it's remarkable that we were in physical condition to be able to walk out and it's remarkable that we did not have a physical encounter with a bear the men were rushed to hospital in Palmer where doctors treated Gary's head injury he was lucky not to need surgery but it took him nearly six months to get over the effects of his fractured skull an air search took two weeks to locate Dave's crashed plane despite his terrifying ordeal Dave was back at the controls within two months I'll continue to fly out continue to love aviation very much a hey don't see my life without it in fact Dave is renovating another aircraft to replace the one he lost on the mountain and fortunate to be able to go on as a pilot and I'll encourage others including Gary I hope that he continues on to get his pilot's license the experience has made Dave and Gary's bond of friendship even stronger me and Dave have grown really close you don't go through an experience like that somebody and survive and not come out of it a lot closer could I have done this alone I don't think so I think that if it wasn't for Gary being there that I wouldn't be here

Channel: Wonder

Views: 1,801,060

Rating: 4.7988505 out of 5

Keywords: wonder, i shouldn't be alive, i shouldn't be alive full episodes, wonder i shouldn't be alive, i shouldn't be alive s6 ep4, isba, i shouldn't be alive bear mountain, crash on bear mountain, bear mountain, best friend survive, survival stories, survival videos, epic survival, escape from bear mountain, wonder survival videos, friend saves friends life, i shouldn't be alive s5 ep13

Id: 5J8DE0X3o8M

Length: 48min 2sec (2882 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 22 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Dobor_olita]

more like how many more stock sounds are there in dota. cause if ur not aware of it. dota uses LOTS of stock sounds. Ursa sound being the most common

[u/stolemyusername]

Dota uses a lot of stock sounds, there are others. My friend pointed out to me that the new Morphling taunt uses the same shotgun sound effect as Halo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPePSUwC4IQ

[u/Chopz0]

I feel like i hear the rooster sound a lot specifically in Saint Seiya

[u/Rukichimo]

There is that Wolf Howl Sound or that Door sound in the secret shop in other movies