Pod Insights Real Survival Stories Alone in the Valley: Outdoorsman in Peril About this episode Josh Burns embarks on a solo expedition into the Blue Mountains of Oregon. But when a freak accident flips the script, this resourceful hunter is turned into potential prey. Alone in the domain of bears, wolves and mountain lions, Josh will have to find a way to rescue himself. All the while, he’ll struggle to move, stay conscious… and even draw breath…
A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins.
Written by Joe Viner | Produced by Ed Baranski | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design & audio editing by Jacob Booth, Liam Cameron, Miri Latham | Assembly editing by Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cian Ryan-Morgan
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:04 John Hopkins? It's October 27, 2022, in the Blue Mountains of Oregon.
1:10 John Hopkins? The wind that whistles through the high desert is sharp and laced with frost. It flattens the sage brush and threads itself through the wheatgrass like a plague of rattlesnakes.
1:27 John Hopkins? High in a remote valley, surrounded by rolling terracotta hills, a haunting, guttural howl echoes across the floodplain. An elemental, primal screech.
1:42 John Hopkins? If anyone were passing by, they might mistake this for the cry of a wild animal.
1:48 John Hopkins? But it's not.
1:51 Speaker 03 Once I had gotten my breath back, I had not stopped screaming.
1:59 Speaker 03 It was just a constant scream and it was odd to me because I couldn't control it. I couldn't make myself stop and it didn't sound like any noise I'd ever made before. You know, just these guttural screams.
2:14 John Hopkins? Forty-two-year-old Josh Burns lets out another animalistic bellow.
2:21 John Hopkins? Pain explodes through his body in searing flashes.
2:26 John Hopkins? He looks up towards the top of the hill, struggling to make sense of the blurry shapes that crowd his vision.
2:33 John Hopkins? Blood drips slowly from a gash on the back of his head.
2:39 Speaker 03 People talk about seeing stars when you hit your head. This was not like seeing stars. This was more like a firework show. Like, my field of vision was just flashes of light and arcs of color screaming across my pane of vision.
3:01 John Hopkins? Josh digs his fingers into the arid earth and drags himself forward.
3:07 John Hopkins? The pain is excruciating, but he has no choice. He has to keep moving. If he pauses to rest, he might lose consciousness.
3:18 John Hopkins? And out here in this valley, that would make him easy prey for the actual wild animals that roam these hills.
3:26 Speaker 03 I didn't want my family to have to walk up on me, you know, having had a run-in with wolves or a bear or something like that. I didn't want my family to have to find me dead.
3:51 John Hopkins? Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations, people suddenly forced to fight for their lives.
4:13 John Hopkins? In this episode, we meet Josh Burns. In October 2022, Josh sets off on a solo hunting expedition in Oregon's Blue Mountains. It's a cold, crisp autumn day, and all the signs suggest a successful trip is ahead, until a freak accident flips the script, turning the hunter into potential prey. Injured, alone, and with no way to call for help, Josh must somehow make it back to his truck. A distance of less than a mile, but in his condition, may as well be a thousand.
4:52 Speaker 03 There was no one else on the mountain but me, and I didn't think there was anyone probably for miles around, so I realized it was going to be up to me to get myself out of there.
5:04 John Hopkins? All this as he struggles to move, struggles to stay conscious, struggles to take a single breath.
5:11 Speaker 03 Breathing is really a subconscious activity. You don't have to think about it most of the time, but even thinking about it, I couldn't make myself inhale. I could not breathe.
5:27 John Hopkins? I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Real Survival Stories.
5:58 John Hopkins? It's Sunday, October 23rd, 2022. Deep in the Blue Mountains of Oregon, a clump of yellow-brown earth flies from a hole in the ground and lands with a soft thump on a steadily growing pile nearby.
6:15 John Hopkins? Inside the half-dug trench, Josh Burns stops for a breather. The 42-year-old plants one boot on the blade of his shovel and leans his weight against it, running a damp shirt sleeve across his brow.
6:29 John Hopkins? A few feet away, outside a rudimentary structure of cinder block and corrugated iron, the chrome fenders of his pickup truck gleam in the autumn sunshine.
6:40 John Hopkins? Josh is laying a gas line to connect his workshop to a propane tank. It's a big job, but worth every drop of sweat.
6:50 John Hopkins? When it's done, he'll be able to enjoy the comfort and convenience of gas-powered heat right where he needs it.
6:58 John Hopkins? Shielding his eyes, he lifts his head and gazes out across the mountains.
7:03 John Hopkins? Beyond a clutch of pine trees at the edge of the pasture, the valley opens up into a vast expanse of sagebrush and wild rye.
7:12 John Hopkins? Variegated bands of sepia-toned rock streak the surrounding hills, their shadowy contours undulating into the distance. Josh breathes a contented sigh.
7:25 Speaker 03 I always just have felt more comfortable in nature. If you pick me up and drop me in the middle of a big city, I feel lost and I feel claustrophobic. I couldn't tell you which direction north is. But if you pick me up and drop me somewhere outside, I'll pretty quickly have my bearings and feel like, okay, I know what direction we should head, and it's just a different comfort level.
7:54 John Hopkins? Josh's outdoorsy personality is a product of his upbringing. His dad used to take him hunting in the back country of Arkansas, a state where much of the wilderness is privately owned. This meant they could only hunt if they received permission from local landowners first. And even then, permission could always be revoked at a moment's notice, often cutting father-son quality time short.
8:18 Speaker 03 As a kid, you know, that felt like, oh, man, you know, we just don't have a place to enjoy this activity together. And so I sort of, in the back of my mind, was always like, I'm gonna own some land someday. That became a lifelong goal of mine, is that my kids, and hopefully their kids and so on, will have a place where they can enjoy the outdoors and not have to worry about someone coming back and saying, well, you can't be here anymore.
8:50 John Hopkins? As he grew older, Josh never lost sight of that dream. He carried it with him through his career in the US Air Force, and later, after retiring from the military, during his time working as an assistant manager at a Walmart Regional Distribution Center. Ten years ago, he and his wife moved out west. They settled in the small community of Hermiston, Oregon, an old frontier town nestled in the sprawling basin of the Columbia River. Hermiston was a great place to start a family and raise their two children. But Josh always had one eye pointed south, seventy miles south, to be exact, where the lilac-hued silhouette of the Blue Mountain Range loomed above the prairie land.
9:33 John Hopkins? The old ambition to someday still own his slice of wilderness still burned brightly.
9:43 John Hopkins? Occupying a huge, fifteen-thousand-square-mile swathe of the American West, the Blue Mountains are an outdoorsman's paradise, an endless, varied terrain of high desert, snow-capped mountains, and lush, evergreen forests. It was here where Josh decided to finally make his dream of being a landowner a reality.
10:06 Speaker 03 We wanted to have a place we could escape to on weekends and be out of town. And so, in 2019, we were able to purchase the property, and that was a lifelong dream.
10:21 John Hopkins? The Burns family holding is two hundred acres of wheatgrass pasture, scrubby hills, and pine woodland, all set amid a lofty mountain valley. Though they still live permanently down in Hermiston, Josh comes here to the mountains whenever he can.
10:36 John Hopkins? This is remote country, as lonesome as it is beautiful, many miles from the nearest town and reachable only by a series of winding gravel access roads.
10:49 John Hopkins? But then, the seclusion is all part of the appeal.
10:59 John Hopkins? One of the great benefits of owning this property is the self-sufficient lifestyle it makes possible. For Josh, hunting isn't so much a pastime as a way of life rooted in respect for the land. He takes only what he needs and only when the season permits.
11:19 Speaker 03 Our family primarily eats wild game that we hunt or fish that we catch here on the Columbia River, and we love that. One of my favorite things to do is to prepare a meal using game that we caught or we harvested and for the family to say, "Wow, this is really good, Dad." My wife loves to garden, and so in the summers, you know, there's times when everything on our table, we either grew or we were able to get from nature.
11:52 John Hopkins? Indeed, that's why Josh is up here now.
11:57 John Hopkins? It's late October, elk rutting season, when the male or bull elks compete for mating rights with the females known as cows.
12:08 John Hopkins? For hunters, this time of year offers a prime window of opportunity.
12:13 John Hopkins? Pumped full of testosterone, male elk will often produce a high-pitched bugling noise meant to attract the attention of nearby cows.
12:22 John Hopkins? By mimicking the calls of a female, a skilled hunter can trick a bull elk into revealing its position.
12:31 John Hopkins? As he works on laying his new gas line, Josh hears a distinctive sound.
12:39 John Hopkins? He looks across the valley at the crumbling, tree-lined escarpment beyond.
12:44 John Hopkins? There, hidden in the timber, several elk are bugling at once.
12:50 John Hopkins? A swelling symphony of shrill mating calls.
12:54 John Hopkins? He can't see the herd, but wherever it is, it's a big one.
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14:08 John Hopkins? It's four days later, Thursday, October 27, early morning. Josh emerges from his workshop in full hunting regalia. Camouflage, cap, and a rifle slung across his shoulder. As dawn breaks, the mountains are a black mass against the indigo sky. His breath fogs the dark air as he crosses the pasture, boots crunching over the frost, the wind like needles at his back. He bristles with anticipation. After laying the gas line on Sunday, Josh drove back to Hermiston for work on Monday and Tuesday.
14:52 John Hopkins? He came back here Wednesday and spent all day yesterday tracking the elk herd without success. Today, he'll try again. But it's not just the thrill of the wild filling him with excitement.
15:06 Speaker 03 It just so happened that the kids did not have school Thursday and Friday that week, and so my wife was going to bring the kids up and my son was going to be able to hunt with me the rest of the season. So I was thrilled.
15:21 John Hopkins? Josh hikes across the pasture as the sun crests the eastern horizon.
15:27 John Hopkins? Yesterday, strong winds foiled his attempts to stalk the herd. Elk are cautious animals. They tend to avoid moving around in blustery weather as the wind makes it hard for them to hear potential threats.
15:40 Speaker 03 Also, it carries your scent as a hunter. They could be a long ways away and be able to sense your presence because your scent has carried on that wind. And so my plan that day was just to cover ground and see if I could perhaps find where they were bedded down.
15:58 John Hopkins? If he can just find where they're hiding, Josh will be able to keep tabs on the herd. Maybe tomorrow, when he's with his son, he can take his shot.
16:15 John Hopkins? He walks across the pasture, ascends the steep brush-covered rise beyond, then descends into the valley that runs through the center of his property.
16:24 John Hopkins? But as he treks across the rolling dun-colored terrain, another idea presents itself.
16:32 Speaker 03 There's a particular place where there's this great meadow, there's a spring in it, and an elk wallow, a place where they'll go to roll around in the mud, cool themselves off. And so that was where I decided, you know, I'm going to go hunt there this morning.
16:52 John Hopkins? Hopefully, when the elk finally emerge from their hiding place, they will make their way down to the water.
17:00 John Hopkins? About half an hour later, Josh reaches the edge of the meadow.
17:04 John Hopkins? He surveys the sloping grassland and the wooded area beyond. He can feel the wind at his back, blowing in the direction of the freshwater spring.
17:14 John Hopkins? This presents a problem.
17:16 Speaker 03 The winds were nowhere near as strong as they were the day before, but they were coming from the wrong direction, where I wanted to sit and be able to watch this meadow, especially the spring. The wind would have been blowing right from my back across to where the animals more than likely would have come out of the trees.
17:37 John Hopkins? The wind, heavily scented with sweat and gun oil, will immediately give away its position and scare off the elk. He needs to gain some elevation, so that he can at least see the animals coming before they turn tail.
17:51 John Hopkins? He considers his options.
17:55 John Hopkins? Alongside the elk wallow is a tall pine tree. About 25 feet up its trunk is a tree stand, a small metal platform that Josh installed a couple of years ago to provide a vantage point.
18:08 Speaker 03 So I thought, well, I could climb up in that tree stand, and the wind would be at a better position, and I would be located in a spot where I could still see the rest of this meadow and hopefully have an opportunity to see an elk come through.
18:23 John Hopkins? Decision made, Josh walks over to the tree. He drops his pack on the hard ground and peers up through the spindly branches. A shadow of hesitation passes over his face.
18:40 Speaker 03 I don't like tree stand hunting necessarily. I like to move around. I'm too, I guess, fidgety as a person to sit still for hours at a time. But I told myself, just take it easy. You promised yourself you're not gonna overdo it today, so you've still got plenty in the tank for when your son gets here.
19:02 John Hopkins? Josh shoulders his pack and slings his rifle across his torso. He grips the weathered bark in his gloved hands and tests his weight against the nailed-in planks that serve as ladder rungs.
19:15 John Hopkins? They seem solid enough. He starts climbing, shimmying his way up the rough, moss-dappled trunk. The makeshift steps creak beneath his boots.
19:30 John Hopkins? But soon, he reaches the stand itself. A two-by-two-foot platform of latticed metal tethered to the tree by a pair of nylon straps.
19:40 John Hopkins? Josh gives the straps a quick tug.
19:45 John Hopkins? They seem just as taut and sturdy as the day he installed them.
19:50 John Hopkins? Reassured, he perches himself on the stand, legs dangling over the edge. He glances at the ground.
19:59 John Hopkins? It's a long way down.
20:03 Speaker 03 Since I wasn't planning on being in a tree stand, I didn't bring my harness with me. But I thought, you know what? As long as I'm really careful, I'll be fine. As long as I don't do anything dumb and fall asleep or move too quickly, nothing bad's gonna happen. I've hunted out of tree stands my entire life.
20:22 John Hopkins? He leans against the tree and lays his rifle across his lap.
20:27 John Hopkins? Beyond the elk wallow, the terrain dips gently into a patch of scrub and pine, offering just enough cover for approaching animals, but also enough visibility if Josh is patient.
20:41 John Hopkins? An hour goes by. As the sun climbs higher, it settles into a beautiful autumn morning, cold and crisp.
20:50 John Hopkins? The sky is cornflower blue and brushed with feathery white clouds.
20:56 John Hopkins? Somewhere, a blackbird twitters. A woodpecker rattles the bark of a distant tree.
21:03 John Hopkins? Josh scratches his chin.
21:07 John Hopkins? He stretches his arms out, flexing his fingers inside his gloves to keep warm. He's starting to feel fidgety.
21:16 John Hopkins? Getting to his feet, he peers into the woodland beyond the meadow, scanning the shadows for movement.
21:23 John Hopkins? As he does, he is oblivious to the nylon straps groaning underneath him, their frayed edges straining and quivering.
21:34 Speaker 03 I looked at my watch, it was nine o'clock. And I thought, okay, I made a deal with myself. I'll sit here for one more hour, and if nothing walks through... I've rested enough. Then I can get down and go for a hike and cover some ground. And I sat back down on the platform, and that's when the tree stand broke.
21:55 John Hopkins? Before he knows what's happening, his world becomes a blur.
22:00 Speaker 03 Suddenly, the hillside just started moving upwards at a rapid pace. And I could feel air rushing across my cheeks. And, you know, it was probably a millisecond, but I realized, I'm falling.
22:17 John Hopkins? Branches whip his face and tear his skin. His flailing arms shoot up while his legs extend forward in an exaggerated sitting position. His body trapped at a right angle, gathering speed as the ground races up to meet him.
22:33 Speaker 03 I had time to think, how bad is this? And I was asking myself, how bad is this going to hurt? And I remember really getting partway through that thought. And it was like, how bad is this going to hurt? And then I hit.
22:58 John Hopkins? It's October the 27th, 2022, in the Blue Mountains. Josh Burns lies face down in the dirt at the foot of a towering pine tree.
23:10 John Hopkins? He is motionless.
23:14 John Hopkins? Blood seeps from a cut on his head, pooling in the dusty soil. Assorted objects are scattered around him. A rifle, a camouflage baseball cap, a pair of scratched sunglasses.
23:28 John Hopkins? The remnants of a morning gone horribly wrong.
23:33 John Hopkins? Twenty-five feet above where he lies, the tree stand hangs flats against the trunk, the ripped nylon straps twisting in the wind.
23:43 John Hopkins? Josh's eyes are wide open, bulging with shock. And then, as the adrenaline fades, he is hit with unspeakable pain.
23:55 Speaker 03 Lying on the ground, the first thing that I remembered was just trying to scream, but this god-awful pain in my chest. And I realized that I'd knocked the wind out of myself and that I needed to get off of my chest because it was hurting too bad.
24:16 John Hopkins? With agonizing effort, he manages to flip himself onto his back.
24:21 John Hopkins? He gapes soundlessly, the tendons in his neck popping furiously.
24:28 John Hopkins? The pain obliterates his senses, draining the color from the sky and muffling all sound.
24:36 Speaker 03 I remember thinking, "You're a statistic now. You're one of those people that they talk about when they're encouraging hunters to be safe and wear harnesses even though it's burdensome and cumbersome to carry around with you." And that thought of how much damage have I done? That made me think about, you know, am I actually paralyzed or not?
25:01 John Hopkins? The way Josh fell meant that he landed in a seated position, his backside and lower spine taking the brunt of the impact. With a creeping sense of doom, he looks down at his legs.
25:13 John Hopkins? He instructs them to move, and after a few nerve-jangling seconds, they obey. He's not paralyzed, that's something.
25:23 John Hopkins? Trembling with exertion, he props himself up onto his elbows.
25:28 John Hopkins? He tries to think through the pain. First things first, he needs to find his backpack. It contains essential medical supplies, including painkillers. Dizzily, he scans around, not seeing it. Then, with a sinking feeling, he looks up into the tree.
25:47 Speaker 03 My hunting pack, you know, it was full. It was probably 45 pounds. I had plenty of emergency gear. And I remember lying there on the ground, looking up at it 25 feet above me and thinking, "Well, that's gonna do me a lot of good at this point."
26:06 John Hopkins? Without his pack, Josh doesn't have much.
26:10 John Hopkins? His cellphone is in his pocket, but without any service up here, it's useless.
26:16 John Hopkins? Then, with a glimmer of hope, his hand moves to his hip. His pistol.
26:23 Speaker 03 We have a lot of big predators in our area. And so I had made it a practice to carry a pistol with me when I was out hunting. And as I lay there on the ground, looking up at my tree stand, I thought, well, I could shoot down my backpack, maybe I could shoot the peg that it's hanging on on the tree.
26:45 John Hopkins? But even as the idea takes shape, it evaporates just as quickly.
26:51 John Hopkins? As good a shot as he is, there's a strong likelihood that he'd miss and waste the ammunition. And up here, the ability to defend himself could be the difference between life and death.
27:02 John Hopkins? The Blue Mountains are home to some of America's most notorious predators. Black bears, wolves, mountain lions.
27:11 John Hopkins? Just yesterday, Josh came across a pile of half-degested grass, which he recognized instantly as the stomach contents of an elk.
27:20 John Hopkins? The animal must have been shot there before being butchered by hunters who would have taken the meat and left the carcass. It's not uncommon to find a skeleton picked clean by vultures. But in this case, there wasn't a scrap left, not a whisker, not a single fragment of bone.
27:38 John Hopkins? Whatever carnivore happened upon that elk carcass, it was something big, something hungry.
27:48 Speaker 03 I'm thinking about, you know, was that a bear that took that entire elk carcass and climbed up in a tree with it? Or was it a mountain lion that had stashed it somewhere? Either way, that's less than a half mile from my current position. And that was motivating. I thought, okay, I'm gonna have to initiate self-rescue.
28:10 John Hopkins? He needs to find help before a predator finds him.
28:14 John Hopkins? He looks around, panoramic views across miles of desolate backcountry, confirming what he already knows, that he's very much alone.
28:25 John Hopkins? He kicks himself for not carrying some other means of communication.
28:29 Speaker 03 I also should have had an emergency satellite phone or emergency beacon. Those were available. I just never felt like it was something I needed. I was overconfident in my own abilities, I guess, and also just kind of had the mentality of it's not going to happen to me. There was no one else on the mountain but me, and I didn't think there was anyone probably for miles around, so I realized it was going to be up to me to get myself out of there.
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30:08 John Hopkins? It's a few minutes later. Unable to call for help, Josh has settled on the only conceivable plan.
30:16 John Hopkins? Somehow, he's going to have to get himself back to his truck and then attempt to drive down the mountain to the nearest town.
30:24 John Hopkins? The journey back to his workshop is about a mile. In his current condition, that is a marathon.
30:32 John Hopkins? It's not even clear if he can walk. The damage to his body is unknown. The broken bones, the torn ligaments, the internal injuries. He's still bleeding from a gash to his head, and his chest feels like it's been stoved in with a shovel.
30:49 John Hopkins? Every breath sends fire coursing through his lungs.
30:53 Speaker 03 Once I had gotten my breath back, I had not stopped screaming. It was just a constant scream, and it was odd to me because I couldn't control it. I couldn't make myself stop. And it didn't sound like any noise I'd ever made before. You know, just these guttural screams.
31:15 John Hopkins? Josh shuffles himself into a sitting position. He pulls his knees into his chest, then with gritted teeth pushes down against the ground and straightens his legs at the same time.
31:29 John Hopkins? For a moment, he stands, teetering from side to side.
31:34 John Hopkins? Then he puts some weight down on his right leg and collapses in a heap.
31:43 John Hopkins? What follows is even worse than before: burning flashes of agony.
31:50 Speaker 03 If you see the video of a battleship, when it's firing off a salvo and all the guns on one side of the ship shoot at once and these big fireballs go across the side of the ship, that's what it seemed like in my brain. Like my TV screen inside my head was just like fireballs constantly erupting.
32:12 John Hopkins? Trying to compose himself, he swivels his gaze up to the edge of the sloping meadow, where a logging road leads back to the workshop, back to his truck.
32:23 Speaker 03 I was just telling myself, like, you have to get up. You have to move. If you can't walk, crawl. And so I started crawling up the hill. There was a trail from where this tree stand was. It was a game trail up the hill, not too steep of an angle that I couldn't crawl up it thankfully. And it intersected with one of the logging roads that runs across our property, so I started crawling.
32:50 John Hopkins? Josh worms his way up the hill.
32:54 John Hopkins? He digs his fingers into the frost hardened soil and pulls, shunts and wriggles. Spasms shoot through his lower back, but he goes on inch by inch.
33:08 John Hopkins? Despite the strenuous effort, he is soon shivering as the ice from the ground transfers to his body.
33:15 John Hopkins? He glances up. Something's off with his vision.
33:22 John Hopkins? The trees at the top of the hill seem to multiply. Blurry shapes overlapping, splitting and doubling.
33:31 John Hopkins? His pulse quickens.
33:35 Speaker 03 If I'm in shock and I lie here and lose consciousness and I freeze to death, like, I don't want my family to have to find me tonight. If they showed up and it was dark and it was cold, that really concerned me. I didn't want my family to have to find me dead.
33:58 John Hopkins? At last, Josh makes it to the top of the hill. From here, the flat, level logging road leads back to the workshop.
34:08 John Hopkins? Through the fog of pain, there is a surge of optimism. This is progress. It's enough of a boost for Josh to attempt to stand again.
34:19 John Hopkins? He repeats the same maneuver as before, and this time, he keeps his balance.
34:24 Speaker 03 I could put just enough weight on like the toe side of my right foot that I could slide my left foot out just inches and then put the weight back on my left foot and then drag my right foot back towards it. And so that was how I was able to, I guess, what I would call a drag shuffle. It wasn't a walk, but I was able to start shuffling down the logging road.
34:52 John Hopkins? After thirty excruciating minutes, Josh rounds a bend. And there, at the bottom of a slope, to the left of the road is his workshop and truck. He is almost there. But now, he has a decision to make. He can follow the logging road back to the workshop, which would add half a mile onto the journey. Or he could cut down this steep, four-hundred-meter slope.
35:20 Speaker 03 If I go off-road, there's a greater chance I might trip and fall. But if I stay on the road, it might take another hour-plus for me to get to the vehicle. And there are places where the road is steep also, and I thought, there's no guarantee I might not fall at that position. So I made the decision to take the shorter route and go down the hill off the road.
35:49 John Hopkins? Delicately, Josh starts picking his way downhill.
35:54 John Hopkins? The slope is bristly, with juniper bushes and tufts of sagebrush. Hidden boulders and branches lurk in the vegetation like tripwires.
36:05 John Hopkins? Suddenly, a wave of dizziness crashes over him. He collapses onto a boulder and leans against the tree behind it, his breath ragged and shallow.
36:18 Speaker 03 My vision went just black, and I was looking down at the ground just through pinholes. And from my survival training in the military, I remembered that, you know, tunnel vision was a sign of losing consciousness. And it seemed like just that momentary rest had allowed the adrenaline in my system to subside enough that deep shock was setting in, and that scared me.
36:49 John Hopkins? He's got to keep moving. With an almighty effort, Josh gets back to his feet, eyes fixed on the ground as he hobbles downhill, his tunnel vision obscuring everything beyond his peripheries.
37:03 John Hopkins? Eventually, the ground levels out as he reaches the bottom of the slope.
37:08 John Hopkins? He staggers over to his truck and slumps against it, then sinks down until he's sitting on the ground, propped up against the driver's door.
37:17 John Hopkins? Closing his eyes, he draws in a few slow, steady breaths.
37:23 John Hopkins? It may seem that the worst is over, but even at this stage, nothing is simple.
37:30 Speaker 03 And so I'm sitting there next to the truck. I've made it this far, and I remember thinking like, "Okay, you have to get in this pickup. That has to happen." And so I use both hands and with a broken back and a broken chest bone, you know, I just knew it was gonna hurt. And so I pulled as hard as I could on the door, and it popped open, and I kept screaming.
37:54 John Hopkins? Josh forces the door wide enough that it won't swing back again.
37:59 John Hopkins? This done, he flops against the frame. His energy is utterly drained.
38:06 John Hopkins? He can feel the bone and cartilage scraping together inside his leg and chest, like his body is made up of wooden blocks that don't quite fit together.
38:17 John Hopkins? With a grimace, he plants his hands against the doorframe and tries to haul himself up into the driver's seat.
38:25 John Hopkins? It takes several attempts, but eventually he manages to get himself seated.
38:31 John Hopkins? The windscreen is still iced over from the night, so he reaches over and pushes the defrost button.
38:38 John Hopkins? As he waits for the air to warm up, he sees something in one of the mirrors: the trailer attached to the back of the pickup.
38:46 Speaker 03 I sat there for a second and I was like, I really need to unhook that trailer. I was really concerned about if I needed to turn around or if something happened and I momentarily passed out and went off in the ditch, like that trailer might mean that I was stranded because I wouldn't be able to to unhook it at that point and get the pickup out.
39:07 John Hopkins? With this new objective, Josh clambers back out of the truck and stumbles around to unhook the trailer.
39:15 Speaker 03 It's hard for me to describe what the pain was like, but it was, you know, just constant and it went in waves of extreme pain to spikes of indescribable pain. But I got down out of the pickup and shuffled back to where the trailer connects to the hitch on the pickup and started the process of unhooking it.
39:37 John Hopkins? Josh removes the safety chains and starts trying to unhook the trailer from the tow bar.
39:44 John Hopkins? But no matter how hard he tries, he can't lift the heavy metal hitch.
39:50 John Hopkins? There's only one thing for it. He'll have to use the landing gear, two retractable legs that support the trailer when it's unattached from the vehicle. With the legs extended, the trailer should lift off the ground enough for him to detach it from the tow bar.
40:07 John Hopkins? With grim-faced determination, Josh starts lowering the landing gear.
40:14 John Hopkins? He can't bend over without agony. So in order to turn the crank, he has to squat down on his haunches while keeping his back ramrod straight.
40:26 John Hopkins? Trembling, sweat stinging his eyes, he rotates the crank. The trailer starts to slowly lift. He's almost done it. And then.
40:37 Speaker 03 Finally, it got high enough that the trailer disconnected and the pickup sort of dropped into its shocks the way they do. And I thought, okay, that's, you know, one less obstacle. Let's get out of here.
40:53 John Hopkins? Josh returns to the driver's seat.
40:56 John Hopkins? He turns the key in the ignition and gently presses the accelerator. The truck creeps forward.
41:04 Speaker 03 I remember thinking, okay, I'm gonna make it. This is great. I pulled out onto the county road. It's a dirt road and it's about a mile out to the highway. And I started driving very slowly and all of a sudden I was aware that I had stopped screaming.
41:22 John Hopkins? His vision has cleared up too. Signs that just maybe this nightmare might soon be over.
41:29 John Hopkins? He eases his foot down on the accelerator, impatient to reach the highway.
41:35 John Hopkins? But as soon as this flicker of hope appears, his hands clamp tighter around the wheel. His eyes widen with alarm. Something is wrong.
41:45 John Hopkins? He can't breathe.
41:48 Speaker 03 It felt like my chest was in a vise and breathing is a really a subconscious activity. You don't have to think about it most of the time. But even thinking about it, I couldn't make myself inhale.
42:06 John Hopkins? Josh pulls over to the side of the road.
42:09 John Hopkins? Pinned back against the seat, he silently heaves and gasps. But it's no use. He is suffocating. Right here in his truck.
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43:30 John Hopkins? It's late morning.
43:32 John Hopkins? Inside his truck, Josh sits very still, eyes closed, jaw slack.
43:39 John Hopkins? Sweat clings to his pallid gray skin.
43:45 John Hopkins? For a moment, there is silence. And then...
43:50 John Hopkins? A barely audible shiver passes his lips.
43:55 Speaker 03 That little sip of breath was like a sip of water after you've been in the desert. It was a very refreshing sensation in the sense that, wow, I was really missing this. And I was careful not to overdo it. I didn't want to gasp and inflame my chest more. So I just sat there for a while, taking very shallow, slow breaths. Seemed like my lungs reinflated and I could breathe again. The tightness in my chest relaxed, and I felt like I was OK to start driving again.
44:35 John Hopkins? Josh gets back on the road and soon reaches the highway.
44:40 John Hopkins? The nearest mountain town is about 35 miles from here.
44:45 John Hopkins? Can he make it that far?
44:48 Speaker 03 It takes 45 minutes to get to the mountain town. That's too far. That's probably too big of a goal. And then I recalled there was a county park, a camping area, like an RV park, about seven miles down the highway. And it was open seasonally. And I knew this was the last weekend that it was open of the year.
45:12 John Hopkins? With a new destination to aim at, Josh presses on.
45:18 John Hopkins? He turns on his hazards in case another vehicle passes him, but none does. He drives at a snail's pace, nudging the steering wheel around the mountain roads, twists and switchbacks.
45:31 John Hopkins? Eventually, he reaches the campground and pulls into the deserted parking lot.
45:37 Speaker 03 Put the vehicle in park and then I just started pressing the horn. I just laid on the horn, thinking that, you know, somebody will hear this and want to know what's going on.
45:49 John Hopkins? It seems like nobody is around. It could be he's got it wrong and the park has closed early this year. But then he sees someone emerging from a building.
46:01 Speaker 03 This older hunter, this guy all dressed in camouflage, finally came out of the restroom with this very confused look on his face. And he looked at me and I stopped honking and I tried to mouth the word "help", like, "Help me."
46:17 John Hopkins? The hunter cautiously approaches Josh's truck, who manages to roll down the window and croak out an explanation that he's been in an accident and he needs urgent medical help. Comprehending, the older hunter rushes over to the campsite office and disappears inside.
46:34 John Hopkins? A moment later, a grizzled, white-bearded man wearing the logo of the county park comes running out of the building.
46:42 Speaker 03 He came to my side of the pickup and he said, "Son, I understand you're hurt. I've got emergency services on the line. They want to know what happened." And so I told them who I was, where I had been, what happened. They asked what the extent of my injuries were and, you know, I didn't know at the time. I said, "I was certain I had fractured my sternum. Something was really wrong with my back and I think I had a concussion."
47:09 John Hopkins? The operator assures him that an ambulance will be there soon. He just needs to hang on. He nods weakly and slumps back against the headrest. He overhears the operator telling the campsite official to keep him awake. If he slips from consciousness, he might not wake up.
47:28 John Hopkins? Over the course of the next hour, the campsite official, whose name Josh learns is Bob, sticks diligently to his brief.
47:38 Speaker 03 I don't think he stopped talking the entire time until the ambulance arrived, and it was about an hour. So I learned all about, you know, Bob's interests and his hobbies. We shared a love for off-roading. He really liked Ford Broncos. That was his favorite vehicle of choice.
47:58 John Hopkins? Eventually, the sound of an ambulance siren interrupts Bob's anecdotes.
48:05 John Hopkins? It's then that the older man's tone changes. His voice becomes gravelly serious as he locks eyes with Josh and speaks from the heart.
48:15 Speaker 03 He looked at me and he said, "Son, I have a boy about your age, and I'm sure you have a dad about mine." And he said, "You've got to be more careful when you're running around up in these mountains. You need to have some way to call for help." And he said, "I'm guessing there's way too many people who care too much about you for you to die up here by yourself." He said, "These mountains don't care about you at all, but people do." And, you know, I... What could I say? I just looked at him and mouthed, "Yes, sir." And that's when the ambulance pulled up.
48:54 John Hopkins? After being rushed to the nearest hospital, Josh learns that while serious and extensive, incredibly, none of his injuries are going to require surgery.
49:05 John Hopkins? As suspected, he shattered his sternum in the fall, as well as fracturing his right ankle and sustaining a bad concussion.
49:14 John Hopkins? He is lucky. Had he landed differently, he could have damaged his spinal column and been paralyzed or worse. But after some initial scans, a torso brace and a demanding regimen of physical therapy are the doctor's orders. He spends the next week in bed. But within a couple of months, he is nearly back to his old self, walking and hiking and playing with his kids in the backyard.
49:41 John Hopkins? Still, not everything is the same as before.
49:45 Speaker 03 I hurt every day. You know, I wake up in the morning and I'm just really stiff. And it's painful to get out of bed, but I have learned, you know, I do yoga five or six times a week. I get up immediately and stretch out. There are certain types of exercise that I can no longer do. But I've learned that it's really important to, you know, keep as fit as possible so that I'm not restricted.
50:12 John Hopkins? He has also taken Bob's cautionary words to heart.
50:18 John Hopkins? These days, when he goes into the wild, Josh makes sure he is prepared for any and every eventuality.
50:26 Speaker 03 My pack probably weighs more now than it did before my accident because I'm even more cautious. And I do have communication devices and I am making sure that if something else happens, I'm going to be able to deal with that.
50:40 John Hopkins? Important lessons about safety aside, he also learned something about himself, about resilience, grit and the will to survive. Qualities that, to Josh's mind, speak to something universal.
50:54 Speaker 03 Since my accident, we live in a pretty small community and lots of people found out about it. So I've had to tell this story many times. And lots of times people say, well, there's no way I could have done that. Or I would have just laid down and died or hoped that help arrived. And I don't really think that's the case. I think the instinct for survival is pretty strong in all of us.
51:33 John Hopkins? In the next episode, we meet John Moore. Out in the rural expanse of South Africa, it's a tough life for a farmer. John has spent years battling thieves who pilfer his livestock.
51:47 John Hopkins? One day, he takes a bold step, chartering a plane to search for some missing cattle in the Drakensberg Mountains. He hopes it'll give him the upper hand, but in the end, everything comes crashing down.
52:01 John Hopkins? When he and his companion Mark find themselves stranded and hurt somewhere in the huge range, the focus of John's mission will switch from recovery to rescue. And he'll have to rely on instincts and ingenuity if he's going to pull them both through.
52:18 John Hopkins? That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen to John's story right now and without adverts by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed or head to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started.
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Previous Upended in a Lake: Ivory Coast Ambush Next Plane Down in Africa: Search Party Lost Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated