This Man Was Lost In The Grand Canyon And Barely Survived | I Shouldn't Be Alive S4 EP9 | Wonder

you when a solo rafter plunges into the Colorado River I remember looking down at the water and going oh oh we're in big trouble laughs his search to find solitude turns into a battle for survival if I let my guard down I'm not gonna make it alone in a remote part of the Grand Canyon it's a desperate fight against hunger and freezing winter temperatures but how long can he survive I was really gonna die right then and there [Music] David Whittlesea is about to head off on an epic journey down the Colorado River [Music] as early as I can remember I was often a little boat rowing around on water I've discovered that I really really enjoyed that kind of activity and the beauty and the solitude of the great outdoors well it looks like I'm gonna be the only one on the river come on as well pull up over there and start unloading david has been on a waiting list for a permit for two years but when another raft trip is suddenly canceled it opens up the window he's been waiting so long for I was living a life of a bachelor and had no particular personal ties that would inhibit me from doing a trip like this but while David craves the solitude the permit is also coming winter the time when few others dare to take on the river and this will be his first ever solo journey I didn't really intend to do a solo trip per se but I didn't want to not take advantage of the fact that I had a river permit it was an opportunity for me to use some of my skills in terms of building my rafting frame and figuring out how to package my particular boat I would guess it weighed close to 2,000 pounds with all the gear I had on it despite David's careful preparation he's still apprehensive about going it alone I do remember when I first shoved off from Lee's ferry I really was quite nervous at the time my primary trepidation had to do with the fact that I was gonna be by myself entirely as far as cellphones you might as well forget those they don't even work in the Grand Canyon with no means of communication if he gets into trouble David's only backup is for his friend to raise the alarm should he fail to return this plan my parting words were hey if I'm not a Pierce Barry when you get there call for help because it means something went wrong David's journey down the Colorado River takes him through the remotest part of the canyon hundreds of miles from civilization the journey of nearly 300 miles goes without a hitch and he soon forgets his earlier apprehension I'd never gated almost the whole trip basically all I had to do is continue on and successfully arrive at my destination the trip has tested all of David's rafting skills and he's had the desolate beauty of the Grand Canyon all to himself there is no place quite like the Grand Canyon you're a mile below the normal surface that we walk around on and there's rocks exposed that are millions of years old I mean the beauty of it is just it's a very difficult to put into words as one of the few people willing to brave the freezing winter conditions he's found the extreme solitude he was looking for the silence is unbelievable I just find it you know the solitude down there is just entire complete you're on a 280 mile voyage that is totally isolated from the rest of the world as we know it once you're there you're on your own David also knows his epic solo journey into the wilderness will be a life-changing one almost everybody that goes down there comes back with a different outlook on at least one aspect of their life David has just three days left of his month-long trip through the canyon at that point I had done a hundred and some Rapids successfully without flipping or finding myself thrown out of the boat but now he must face the one part of the trip he's been dreading the most dangerous Rapids on the entire River Lava Falls you can hear lava falls long before you get you the tension kind of builds the closer you get to it and the noisier it gets the general practice is that you get out and you scout the rapid before you go through it so you can sort of pick out where the the major obstacles are every set of Rapids on the river has been rated for difficulty in a Grand Canyon they have a rating system based on one to ten love of fools is a ten there's a true measure of Oh boatman even though I had navigated all these previous Rapids without use of my wetsuit I was scared enough of the potential calamitous nature of lava Falls that I put my wetsuit on above the rapid there's typically a pool so the water is really really slow and then all of a sudden your velocity increases dramatically [Music] the sense of acceleration can be disoriented and in and of itself lava Falls has the natural waterfall the 14-foot drop I was terrified it is readily avoidable if you know what you're doing and picked the right course but David is now completely out of control I can remember very vividly my boat turning vertical and nosing straight down to Falls I was slammed forward into my ice chest [Music] the boat for reasons which I still cannot figure out today bounced back upwards even though my boat by then was entirely filled with water it was upright and I was still in it and we were still floating I was thrilled I figured I was home free I remember thinking you're done you've made it you've successfully navigated all hundred-and-some rapids in the Grand Canyon and you know you're only 50 miles or so away from the end of the trip and it's basically all flat water with lava falls behind him david removes his life jacket and wetsuit [Music] but he's forgotten there are still several Rapids ahead my first recollection that I was in any danger was when I found myself floating directly into these rocks they're sharp pointed and they look like teeth in the dog's mouth and I was side words to the current at the time I knew that was something I really did not want to allow to happen I did take a powerful stroke with my upstream war and attempt to pivot the boat around the rocks I can't believe this is actually happening my first thought that my boat will be fine and it will pivot itself around and float off of this thing but the current has pinned the raft tightly against the wrong and before I know it the boat shot up in the air I was just totally stunned how can the river be that powerful that shoot this 2,000 pound raft up in the air I remember you know looking down at the water and going oh oh we're in big trouble now I came up underneath the boat my head was out of water and I was breathing the water is barely 40 degrees and David knows he must get out fast or he'll freeze to death I was concerned that I would become entangled in the raft [Music] I'm wet and I'm cold and I'm with an upside-down raft [Music] with his raft now useless he has no way out of the canyon his only option is to turn it back up right but with the raft weighing two thousand pounds that's going to take all his ingenuity I wasn't gonna be able to just get underneath the raft and push it up and over I realized that the only way of writing the raft was gonna be to use a pulley rope configuration but to rig the pulley he's going to have to go under his raft to retrieve the equipment into the sub-zero waters of the river it's dark under there you can't see anything I'm basically working by you know blind field I have a picture in my head where things ought to be which doesn't mean that they are because everything's topsy-turvy and turned upside down and I have to force myself to to get in and out of the river to get this stuff I needed pulleys and carabiners and webbing and rock climbing anchors with each trip under the ruffed David's cool body temperature plummets and he must battle the extreme effects of hypothermia we don't often have experiences of prolonged cold and that's what I was dealing with your blood thickens when it's cold so you know there's less oxygen being provided to your muscles this less oxygen being provided to your brain you don't think this clearly or as sharply and I was aware of that process occurring to me it takes David more than an hour to rescue the necessary gear by the time he's done he can barely move but now he must figure out how to rig the complex pulley system I was very cold and my thinking processes had slowed down but the time it actually took was considerable David knows that he can't hold a 2,000 pound raft upright he'll be stranded I didn't even get it close to upright one of the anchors let loose came to singing by my head all of David's efforts have been in vain his only option now is to find a way to lighten the load I could look down river and see that there was a sort of sandy alcove a little bit downstream that I figured if I could get the boat over to then I would have a large enough area to unload the rest of the gear but it's impossible to drag the boat along the steep shoreline cold and desperate David decides to take a massive gamble realizing that I was not gonna be able to to wait along the shore and pull the boat down with me to this alcove I got on the boat I remember standing up on this upside-down raft with one or trying to navigate downriver to get to the sandy alcove sort of like a Venetian gondolier with his one or navigating the canals but the river is so powerful it's impossible to steer I tend to turn more than the raft when I try to turn the or swept past the safety of the alcove he's now hurtling towards the next set of Rapids with no way of navigating his way through it there's literally nothing to hang on to there are no hand holes no toe holds nothing desperately fighting for breath in the icy river David's got to hold onto his raft or risk drowning I managed to grab the lifeline around the boat but the powerful current drags him and the raft into huge underwater rocks it floated up onto the rocks and drug me over the rocks with the boat David is faced with a desperate decision if he keeps hold of his boat he'll be smashed into the rocks if he lets go he'll lose everything my thinking was if I don't get out of this river it's gonna kill you so there I am standing up on this outcropping watching my boat float away and calling after it hoping it would come back to me like I was calling after a dog I was frightened I kept hoping that by some bizarre circumstance it would Eddie out someplace where I would be able to get to it and once it disappeared from view I just go you know good god what am i into now I realized I was in a pretty serious predicament and there's not in a spot to sit comfortably much less do anything else I started you know seriously considering what my options were we you know do you want to try and hike out of the canyon just what are your options trapped at the bottom of steep cliffs David can see no option but to try to scale the sheer rock wall to safety it's painfully slow progress after an hour he still own 30 feet above the river I'm traversing these rock faces using my toes on little cracks in the rock and using as much caution as I possibly could conceive of due to the fact that I was alone and they you know when any Falls would be catastrophic but the higher he climbs the more unstable the rock face becomes this dislodged rack decided to roll down onto my foot it resulted in breaking a couple of Chows it's just a rock landed on my foot there wasn't anything I could do about it at the time climbing upwards is agony but the cliff face is too steep to descend so he has no option was to keep going I grabbed onto a rock I'm using it as a handhold but work my way around sort of an outcropping and the rock comes off in my hand and then I sort of teetered there for a few seconds minutes hours days lifetimes from those I lost my balance and fell over completely backwards sliding headfirst on my back across this rock face thinking you did this is it my lifejacket caught on something it flipped me completely over in a backward somersault I hit my chin on something hard enough to break 40 knocked myself entirely unconscious [Applause] [Music] I found myself in the Colorado River coming up out of the water spitting teeth out of my mouth I could see another sandy spot further downstream from me I'd say a half a mile down from where I was I knew that just getting my son in this alcove that I could see was going to be a challenge and I'm probably a good 30 feet above the river and lo and behold right in front of my face is a can of beer the beer can is the first sign of life he's seen in over 20 days but he quickly realizes it must have been washed up in floods years earlier this parish has been there long enough that the label is just about entirely faded off of it [Music] having lost all of his supplies David knows it could provide a valuable source of energy David slowly picks his way across the rocks and two hours later finally reaches the small isolated Cove by the time I had actually gotten down to the sandy alcove I pretty much dried out and warmed up just from exertion only now does David realize the enormity of his situation his quest for solitude brought him to the heart of the Grand Canyon but it's now left him utterly alone in winter when he's unlikely to see anyone for months surrounded by mountains at the edge of the river he's completely stranded he's lost everything he has no food shelter or warm clothing and David knows he now faces at freezing night ahead I was getting down into the 40s at night I was aware that the most immediate threat to my health and sanity was gonna be hypothermia with no way to call for help and all his tools and equipment lost David knows he must rely on himself and his ingenuity if he's to stay alive I seriously got into survival mode I'm trying to figure out ways to keep my self warm and protected from the elements I managed to dig a body sized pit in the sand and I found a fairly good-sized log that I could put on the upwind side of my little pit block the wind out I spent the rest of the afternoon gathering up a gigantic mound of dried grasses and I lined my little pit in that and built myself a nest not on like a bird's nest basically I did happen to have a you know propane lighter in my pocket and I did manage to get you know a fire going as the Sun went down but with temperatures now dropping to well below freezing the fire is his only way to stave off hypothermia if he falls asleep and it goes out he'll die and david's trip isn't due to end for another few days the earliest that anyone will even know he's missing I've got you know two and a half maybe three days as long as I can keep myself from becoming so hypothermic that my body shuts down I might drift off into a semi-conscious state but I've was definitely never into a full relaxed sleep [Music] [Applause] David survives the night but by morning he can hardly move I was very cold and my thinking processes had slowed down my movement and physical activity had slowed down but even during the day the temperature is barely above freezing because in winter little sunshine which is the canyon floor I had two hours of direct sunlight during the day and you know I would follow the Sun around and stay in it as as much as I possibly could just for the warmth and the comfort despite his difficulty walking david has to prepare for another freezing night ahead [Music] I would have to gather driftwood for the upcoming night so that I would have would burn and I didn't burn it during the day I didn't have enough wood to just you know have an unlimited fire David second night exposed to the elements is colder than ever but he fears the fire alone will not keep him warm enough to survive I couldn't think of you know what else can I do to to keep myself warm and then spontaneously it occurred to me well heat rocks which would contain warmth for at least a period of time and then bury them in the sand beneath my little pit it would create a little thermalized nest for me to hang out in you're doing everything you can to to keep it going and you just want to hope for the best outcome but there's a better than normal chance you know you're not gonna get out of this [Music] David manages to survive a second night but it's now almost three days since he last ate any solid food then he's getting weaker I was starting to get pretty hungry your stomach starts to get sore and this is actually a physical pain to it I could go down to the river and I could actually see fish right there at the edge of the shoreline I tried to device various different methods of you know grabbing them or killing them I found a stick and tried spearing them with absolutely no success whatsoever without food David's body has no calories to burn to generate warmth putting him at even greater risk of hypothermia he needs to keep moving but fatigue finally overwhelms him I woke up and was startled that I had fallen asleep and was concerned and frightened by that well Jesus if I let my guard down I'm not gonna gonna make it as he faces his third night out in the canyon the desire to sleep is overwhelming it's only me and the moon rock formation and a river and you may you may be able to see it again tomorrow you may not I really was feeling you know really dejected and wondering why I ended up in this situation to begin with David is clinging to the hope that by now his friend will have raised the alarm and tomorrow rescue will arrive [Music] after four days fighting to stay alive it seems a search party has finally come looking for him I jumped up and down and wave my arms you're looking at this plane and you can clearly see it I'm wearing a bright red life vest yeah it's just inconceivable that they can't see you but as the plain banks away David realizes he's invisible from the air [Music] come back come back his only hope of rescue was gone [Music] [Music] as he prepares for a fourth night David knows he's in desperate trouble I was getting to be pretty depressed and I realized that you know something had not happened the way it was supposed to but not appears very when you get there call for help because it means something went wrong David is unaware that his friend has assumed he's just extended his trip no one is even up looking for him I was aware of the fact that I was in dire predicament and the longer it went on that the more frightening it became with no hope of rescue David is at the mercy of the hostile Kenyan and totally alone for four days David has clung to the hope that his friend will raise the alarm but he now realizes but no one is looking for him the mental battle was probably harder than the physical battle keeping myself from allowing myself to believe that I was really gonna die right then and there David is determined to dig deep I'm laying there doing nothing and I'd you know you can't just sit here and do nothing you gotta try something I wasn't gonna give up and say the hell with it but by now his physical condition has deteriorated so far he could barely stand [Music] my feet by then we're just totally trash and there's it is very difficult for me to walk anywhere at all despite the pain he decides his only hope is to make himself more visible from the air by building a large distress signal but that means shifting hundreds of rocks from the water's edge all of the rocks were down in this drainage so I'd have to you know go down there and grab up one or two rocks or whatever I felt that I could carry and then drag them back up on this hillside it's an agonizingly slow and painful process [Music] I build a rock X it was probably ten feet long each arm of it so that mean that's a lot of trip something down a lot of rocks to carry it's late afternoon by the time he's done and he's utterly exhausted [Music] it's three days since he last ate anything he's now so weak he's desperate for energy as every barfly knows is a sandwich worth of calories in every can of beer I definitely advise against drinking eight-year-old beer definitely not one of the tastiest beverages I've ever imbibed despite his exhaustion and hunger he can't afford to rest the temperature is dropping first and he's running out of firewood they started gathering the stuff that was closest to where I was and then every day I'd get a little bit further away so I'd have to spend more time gathering it up and getting it there obviously you're becoming weaker and weaker all the time and and it becomes more difficult to do the things that you did the day before as I was doing that there's this little tiny lizard it was probably you know maybe four inches long kind of scooted out across a rock for some amazing reason I was able to be quick enough to actually swat it [Music] I kind of broke it in half and swallowed it down I was hungry enough by that point in time too that that would eat anything I was feeling that since I have no idea how long I'm gonna have to do this any nutrition I can get whatsoever is is gonna be better than none you served a good cause David's ingenuity and determination have helped him survive for six days injured and alone in the Grand Canyon he expected to be rescued days ago but now the hostile winter conditions have taken a terrible toll on his body and he's beginning to lose his mind I had all kinds of wild fantasies occurring you know the world had been devastated by nuclear explosions and I was probably the only human left on the planet particular incidents or scenes out of my past history would would come to the surface of my consciousness Hey I remember pretty vividly thinking about and remembering events that I had shared with us various different friends and so forth and and thinking about them and being sad that you know they might not see them again [Music] now two week together would or maintain his fire david's core body temperature is dropping rapidly he's losing his battle with hypothermia David Whittlesea came to the Grand Canyon to experience peace and solitude but stranded and at the mercy of the elements he faces freezing to death alone by Saturday morning I was I was pretty down I was you know really depressed I wrote a farewell note to my family and friends and carved it into a little piece of driftwood I marked down the number of days that I thought I'd survived there it was important to me to let my friends and family know that I was thinking of them and my death had been accidental [Music] after seven days fighting to stay alive David has nothing left all he can do is lie down and wait for death I had done everything that I could think of to ensure that I would survive and it seemed like you know nobody cared [Music] [Music] my first inkling that something was happening was the noise of the helicopter fairly rapidly increased in volume and noise yeah [Music] [Music] when the helicopter came around the corner I was stood up when I was waving my arms and jumping up and down and crying and laughing I mean there was a great sense of relief and you know I've never experienced so many emotions all at one time as I did right then I was laughing because I was so happy to have survived the whole ordeal and I was crying because I was so grateful for having survived the whole ordeal he really was an upwelling of emotions that was totally beyond my normal range of experience having discovered David's capsized raft 20 miles downstream the park authorities had launched a search and rescue mission they were amazed to find me still alive they told me that they were sure they were looking for her body the pilot had a sandwich that his wife had made for him it was probably one of the best sandwiches I've ever had in my life seven days after his accident david was finally airlifted to safety he went on to make a full recovery and is still passionate about rafting [Music] I never did believe it was my time to die I do believe that you can enhance your chances of surviving by believing that you are going to survive my life has changed significantly because of this incident in some deep spiritual sense that I have a more positive outlook and I also think I have a better grasp on what it means to be alive you

Channel: Wonder

Views: 2,459,278

Rating: 4.7670646 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 s4 ep9, i shouldn't be alive series 4, i shouldn't be alive river of fear, i shouldn't be alive trapped in the grand canyon, grand canyon, grand canyon survival, survival story, grand canyon Colorado river, wonder survival videos, extreme survival, lost in grand canyon, survivors tell their stories, how to signal help if you're lost

Id: Ypiorcd0R6k

Length: 48min 9sec (2889 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 08 2018