Bushwalker Wounded: Neil in a Haystack

Neil Parker sets out on a casual hike just outside of Brisbane. It’s a beautiful day, and he’s enjoying working his way through the forested slopes, past the wild orchids and hibiscus flowers, the cockatoos and the koalas. But when he tries to navigate around a waterfall, the world crumbles beneath him. After a bone-crunching fall, Neil will have no option other than to attempt to crawl to safety. With debilitating injuries, plus tricky terrain and venomous reptiles blocking his path, it will turn into an epic slog… 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 by Matt Peaty | Assembly edit by Rob Plummer, Dorry Macaulay | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Ralph Tittley. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

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• 1:03John Hopkins?

  Sunday, September 15, 2019.

• 1:07John Hopkins?

  It's early spring in southeast Queensland, Australia. And the forested slopes around Mount Nebo flourish with new life.

• 1:16John Hopkins?

  Wild orchids and hibiscus flowers sprout through the undergrowth, dazzling brushstrokes of pink and yellow against the rich green canvas.

• 1:26John Hopkins?

  High in the canopy, cockatoos and koalas lounge among the branches of the gum trees, which sway softly in the warm breeze.

• 1:35John Hopkins?

  Meandering through the heart of the forest, a creek tumbles downhill over a staircase of large, moss-dappled boulders.

• 1:44John Hopkins?

  Periodically, the water plunges over spectacular drops, collecting in dark, circular pools fringed by giant ferns.

• 1:55John Hopkins?

  Making his way upstream, navigating the jumble of boulders with practised agility, is fifty-four-year-old bushwalker Neil Parker.

• 2:05John Hopkins?

  He scrambles on all fours, pulling himself past one obstacle before hopping onto the next. His movements are smooth, fluid. He is comfortable on this terrain. Neil reaches a tall rock face, bisected down the middle by a ribbon of cascading white water.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  You walk into this beautiful circular ponds and this massive thirty-meter black slab rock face in front of you, with a tree line branching off to the right-hand side.

• 2:39John Hopkins?

  His gaze zigzags up the sloping black edifice.

• 2:44John Hopkins?

  The rock face is high, but not vertical all the way up. At about twenty feet, it drops back to a gradient that is easily walkable. From there, it's a relatively simple scramble the rest of the way.

• 2:58John Hopkins?

  Neil follows a path that leads around the side of the waterfall, then up to the point where the rock face flattens to a shallower gradient.

• 3:06John Hopkins?

  He steps onto a ledge. It feels solid enough. He weighs up his next move.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  I'm just standing there and I'm just looking about where I'm heading off to next. I look down, I saw my left foot sliding. I looked up to find something to grab and there was nothing. My left foot slipped.

• 3:23John Hopkins?

  Suddenly, his foot shoots out from underneath him. Before he has time to steady himself, he starts sliding backwards. There are no handholds, no way to stop what is happening. The dried algae coating the rock is crumbling beneath his boots, forming a treacherous slippery surface that is leading him inexorably towards a sheer twenty-foot drop.

• 3:47Speaker 03

  I looked straight away down that curved rock face that I knew I was headed for. And I looked down there and I just thought, this is gonna be bad, Neil. You are gonna be seriously injured when you land.

• 4:09John 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.

• 4:31John Hopkins?

  In this episode, we meet Neil Parker. One Sunday in September 2019, Neil is out on a casual hike through a popular wilderness area outside Brisbane where he lives.

• 4:43John Hopkins?

  It's a beautiful day, and he's enjoying working his way up an intricate creek system. But when he tries to navigate around a waterfall, the world crumbles beneath him. Next comes a brutal fall and a series of bone-crunching collisions as he plummets 20 feet into deep water. By the time he resurfaces, the damage has been done.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  I say, Neil, there's something really, really bad with your leg. Something is really, really not good with your left foot.

• 5:14John Hopkins?

  Unable to walk, his only option is to crawl. On a map, it might not seem far back to where he started. But with debilitating injuries, plus tricky terrain and venomous reptiles blocking his path, this 600-meter crawl will soon turn into a grim, soul-crushing slog.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  You must have crawled for eight hours. You've got to be close to the junction. Why haven't we found the junction? If you've gone past the junction, you're just going to die out here. There's no way you can do this. You've tried and tried, and you don't even seem to be moving on the map.

• 5:50John Hopkins?

  I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Real Survival Stories.

• 6:18John Hopkins?

  It's September the 15th, 2019. In his apartment in the Brisbane suburbs, Neil Parker is packing a day bag. The 54-year-old runs through his checklist: first-aid kit, map and compass, snacks, water bottle, hunting knife. Everything he'll need for this sunny Sunday hike.

• 6:39John Hopkins?

  Today's outing is a casual one: a quick jaunt along Cabbage Tree Creek, a shallow stream that runs through the Mount Nebo nature area just outside the city.

• 6:50John Hopkins?

  It's a straightforward route that Neil has walked many times before.

• 6:54John Hopkins?

  But, as any experienced bushwalker knows, proper preparation, even for apparently simple expeditions, is essential. By nature, Neil is careful, detail-oriented, and practical. But as he nears the end of his checklist, one glaring omission jumps out at him: a handy piece of gear that unfortunately was a casualty of his recent divorce.

• 7:20Speaker 03

  I would normally carry a PLB, which is a personal location beacon. Some people know about things called E-Perbs. E-Perbs are what a ship uses. They're Russian-going location beacons, but on land they call PLBs, personal location beacon. But when we split up, the PLB was the wife's, so she kept it, and I was meant to buy another one.

• 7:40John Hopkins?

  But in the end, Neil never got around to it. Venturing into the bush without a PLB isn't ideal. But if he gets into trouble, he should still be able to rely on his mobile phone.

• 7:52John Hopkins?

  He'll be tackling this little trek solo.

• 7:56John Hopkins?

  He did invite a couple of friends from his local hiking club, the Brisbane Bushwalkers, but they both had other plans this weekend.

• 8:04John Hopkins?

  And so Neil has made some appropriate adjustments. He won't be going anywhere outside of mobile range, so as long as his phone doesn't run out of battery, he should be covered on that front. Plus, it's not like he's off exploring the outback. Mount Nebo is less than 40 kilometers from downtown Brisbane. So when his friends said they couldn't come with him, he shrugged it off.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  I said, "Oh, yeah, no problem. It's okay." And I thought, "It's only a three-hour walk. I'll avoid all the hard stuff." Off I go. Three hours. I'll be home by lunch.

• 8:40John Hopkins?

  He checks the battery on his phone is fully charged. Then he slips it into his pocket, shoulders his backpack, and grabs his car keys.

• 8:50John Hopkins?

  There is always nothing quite like this moment.

• 8:54John Hopkins?

  Stepping through his front door, map and compass in hand, bound for an adventure in the great wide world beyond.

• 9:03John Hopkins?

  Finding escape in nature was something that Neil learned to do as a child, growing up in a poor, crime-ridden corner of Brisbane.

• 9:12Speaker 03

  It was a very tough upbringing. You'd only have to look the wrong way at the shopping centre and you'd get your head punched in and things like that, you know. It just was rough. So you learn to keep your head down and be smart about what you did and where you went and stuff like that.

• 9:26John Hopkins?

  But being inconspicuous was never going to be easy for young Neil. Tall, thin, and socially awkward, he was an easy target for school bullies. Despite his father working two jobs, money was often scarce, which meant that he and his three sisters had to go without basic necessities.

• 9:45John Hopkins?

  This, too, became a reason for other kids to single him out.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  I didn't wear a school uniform. I only had hand-me-down clothes. I never had new sneakers. I was a string bean. I was as skinny as a rake. And then because I was shy, they would pick on me and I knew I wouldn't fight back. I'd just get upset and that's what they'd just do. They'd just keep picking at me because they knew they could upset me.

• 10:09John Hopkins?

  All told, school was a pretty miserable endurance test. But when the last lesson of the day finished, it was always a place he could go to to find solace and a sense of belonging. A place where no school uniform was required.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  Being outdoors for me has always been the place that's richened my batteries and made me feel alive. Being the only boy in the family, mum and dad never used to worry about me and me and the local kids, we'd go down in the bush all day and we'd play in the creek in the bush. And as long as we're home by dark, you know, that wasn't a problem. The freedom to do that and be myself around friends outside of school was just great.

• 10:48John Hopkins?

  After finishing school, Neil joined the Royal Australian Navy, enticed by the prospect of overseas travel.

• 10:56John Hopkins?

  But in the end, his stint in the military was short-lived.

• 11:01Speaker 03

  I only lasted a year in the Navy. It turned out it wasn't quite for me. I'm too independent. I don't particularly do well in groups. And so, I'm the kind of person who likes to ask how high to jump when the child to jump. I'd rather just do my own thing.

• 11:15John Hopkins?

  Neil quit the Navy and returned to Brisbane to find work.

• 11:20John Hopkins?

  He started selling kitchen equipment on shop floors, then worked his way up the ladder to become a commercial kitchen designer. During this time, he got married and had kids, a son and a daughter.

• 11:33John Hopkins?

  But while it may have seemed from the outside like everything was going great, the reality wasn't so rosy. Beneath the veneer of personal and professional success, he was struggling.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  I got divorced from my first wife with my kids. It was my fault. Drink and depression was a problem I was dealing with, but it was undiagnosed, and it cost me my marriage. In 2012, she relocated back to New Zealand and the kids went with her. So in 2012, I had a massive mental breakdown and I spent six months where I just drank, cried, slept, and did nothing. Couldn't get out of bed. I lost everything. I lost my house, lost my job, lost my career. Everything. I was $3,000 in debt to a mate and had to start again.

• 12:26John Hopkins?

  Slowly, with the help of a therapist, his mental health improved.

• 12:32John Hopkins?

  Contributing towards his recovery was the fact that around this time, he got involved with a local hiking club, the Brisbane Bushwalkers.

• 12:40John Hopkins?

  Over the past decade, Neil's love of outdoor adventure had fallen by the wayside, lost in the general melee of life. But around 2012, shortly after his mental health crisis, he rediscovered the pursuit that had given him so much joy as a kid.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  It's pretty much what saved my life in 2012. It's what turned my life around. It gave me renewed purpose to live, to have a reason to be alive, to look forward to the weekend, getting out with a group of like-minded people, having fun, great banter, adventuring, climbing, scrambling. This is absolutely what I want to do. And it really, really did totally change my life around.

• 13:25John Hopkins?

  It's now seven years since Neil joined the Brisbane Bushwalkers. In that time, he's gone from the newest recruit to one of the group's most proficient guides. It has become the focal point of his life. A few years ago, he met someone, a woman from the club, and got remarried. And though the relationship didn't last, they split on good terms, and both remain active members. As for his kids, Neil was estranged from them for a long time after his first divorce, but recently there have been signs of a potential reconciliation. A little over a month ago, his son came out to Brisbane to visit his dad for the first time in years.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  He came over and he saw me, and, you know, we had a lengthy conversation about what we had done wrong and stuff like that. And so we come to an agreement that, you know, we would work positively to bring our relationship back together. I was on a high-thinking break. Wasn't the best of circumstances, but at the start.

• 14:25John Hopkins?

  As he follows the road towards Mount Nebo, Neil's mood is light. He's full of optimism, not just for the hike ahead, but for the future in general.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  The thought of having the opportunity to be a father to my children again is like, excellent, this is what I've always wanted to be. I always wanted to be a father, and unfortunately, I lost that opportunity. And now I've been handed it back on the platter. I don't want to lose that.

• 15:02Speaker 00

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• 15:30Speaker 01

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• 16:05John Hopkins?

  It's about 9 a.m. Neil has parked his car at the trailhead and is picking his way along Cabbage Tree Creek. The waterway runs down the middle of a deep, rock-filled gorge, tumbling and twisting around stepping stone boulders.

• 16:20John Hopkins?

  After walking for about an hour, he reaches a junction where the creek forks. There's a small clearing to one side and a gravel track that leads off into the trees.

• 16:30John Hopkins?

  His plan is to walk upstream along one of the forks until he reaches a series of beautiful waterfalls and swimming holes.

• 16:39Speaker 03

  From that location, it's uphill, fairly steep, scrambly rocks. We're talking about rocks the size of cars to be climbing over and scrambling over constantly. It's not just a flat walk, it's all fours, hands on, everything, climbing over everything.

• 16:58John Hopkins?

  Neil navigates the boulders with dexterity. And at about 9:30, he reaches the first of a series of waterfalls.

• 17:07John Hopkins?

  He pauses on a boulder and looks up at the obstacle. A sheer rock face soars 100 feet above his head, split down the middle by a plume of cascading water.

• 17:19John Hopkins?

  It's not vertical all the way to the top. At 20 feet, the rock face flattens, making it possible to scramble up without ropes.

• 17:29John Hopkins?

  In the past, Neil has led walking expeditions around this very fall. It's a good place to take less experienced walkers because of the range of difficulty grades it presents.

• 17:40Speaker 03

  I would lead walkers around a right-hand face above the deep water to see if they would like doing an overhang climb around and into the main part of the waterfall and up.

• 17:52John Hopkins?

  For those who didn't fancy the tricky overhang climb, he would suggest the so-called "chicken track", a footpath that leads around the side of the falls up to the point at which the rock face flattens out. Ordinarily, he'd challenge himself with a harder climb.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  But on this day, no, Neil, that's the high-grade walk. You're not putting yourself at risk today. Go around the back, do the chicken track, and come out where that leads out to the top. So I did that, went around the back, came up to the flat rock at the top, and I've just got the flat wall face in front of me. I was on a bit of a knife-edge of a rock, but it was almost flat. It's be less than 5-degree angle of slope.

• 18:34John Hopkins?

  He pauses on the ledge. Next to him, the waterfall crashes into the deep pool below.

• 18:42John Hopkins?

  The rock beneath his feet is covered in a fine coating of brownish-red algae, thoroughly dried out by the sun.

• 18:50John Hopkins?

  During the rainy season, Neil would never attempt this walk. The slippery weeds would make it far too dangerous. But now, the algae adds traction beneath his trail shoes.

• 19:02John Hopkins?

  Or at least, it's supposed to.

• 19:06John Hopkins?

  For months, this part of Australia has been experiencing higher-than-normal temperatures and lower-than-normal rainfall. The result is that the algae has dried out to an extent that Neil hasn't experienced before. Rather than providing grip, the dehydrated plants turn to dust beneath his feet, transforming this beginner-level walk into a deadly booby trap. So, just when he pauses to adjust his footing, Neil slips.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  I looked down, I saw my left foot sliding. I looked up to find something to grab, and there was nothing. I looked back down and my right foot slipped, and I just noticed this white powder coming out from under my feet.

• 19:48John Hopkins?

  The algae has crumbled to a fine, white dust beneath his shoes. As he skids backwards, arms flailing, Neil glances over his left shoulder towards the drop he's sliding towards. Rocky ledges, jutting boulders, and a pool of icy water all await below. This is going to hurt.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  And I just thought, this is gonna be bad, Neil. You are gonna be seriously injured when you land. If you're alive when you hit the bottom, you need to start swimming. It's gonna be cold, you're gonna get into shock. You gotta do what you gotta do as soon as you hit that water.

• 20:36John Hopkins?

  It's about 9:40 a.m., southeast Queensland, Australia. In the dense, lush rainforest around Mount Nebo, on a rocky ledge partway up a 100-foot waterfall, Neil Parker has lost his footing. The experienced bushwalker slides backwards, knees bent, arms grasping at thin air, frantically reaching for handholds in the rock wall to his right. Twenty feet below, the waterfall crashes thunderously onto a solid stone ledge before spilling out into a deep, dark lunge pool. As he slides, Neil makes one final futile lunge for a handhold. But it's no good.

• 21:21John Hopkins?

  And with that, he topples backwards over the edge, pinballing between the rocks on his way down.

• 21:32Speaker 03

  And I'm going down and I go bang, crash, splash into the water.

• 21:41John Hopkins?

  He plummets into the deep pool of water, cold rushing through his body.

• 21:46John Hopkins?

  Seconds later, his head resurfaces as he gasps and thrashes about.

• 21:53John Hopkins?

  It takes a moment or two to come to his senses, but when he does, there is a strange, sickening sensation in his lower leg.

• 22:03Speaker 03

  I said, "Neil, there's something really, really bad with your leg. Something is really, really not good with your left foot. Keep swimming, keep swimming, get out of the water. You don't want to go into shock." I only had about twenty, thirty feet to swim up to a rocky shoal. And I pulled myself up onto the rocky shoal and I looked and I thought, "I'm alive."

• 22:24John Hopkins?

  Neil lies on his back on the rocks, his chest heaving. A dull throb radiates from his left ankle. Wincing, he hauls himself up into a sitting position and looks down to assess the damage.

• 22:39Speaker 03

  "Okay, what's wrong with your leg?" "I lifted my leg up out of the water and my foot fell off the end of my leg, just drooped off the end of my leg."

• 22:48John Hopkins?

  He stares, wide-eyed.

• 22:52John Hopkins?

  His left ankle has snapped so severely that his foot hangs limp, moving in a way it shouldn't, as though held in place by a loose hinge.

• 23:03John Hopkins?

  Working quickly, using what he has, he fashions a splint out of his walking pole and some snakebite bandages.

• 23:11John Hopkins?

  As he wraps his leg in elastic gauze, he feels a sudden, sharp pain in his left wrist. His left hand is swollen and bruised. He'll have to keep an eye on that, too.

• 23:25John Hopkins?

  Once he's all strapped up, Neil turns his focus towards rescue.

• 23:31Speaker 03

  I've still got feeling in my fingers. Okay, can't be too bad. Okay, call for help. Bring my pack around, get my dry sack out with my phone in it. No range. I'm in a rock gorge. I'm surrounded on three sides by this rock enclosure. I can't get range.

• 23:49John Hopkins?

  With a trembling hand, he holds up his phone, trying to pick up a bar of signal.

• 23:55John Hopkins?

  No luck.

• 23:57John Hopkins?

  A grim truth settles on him. To reach an area where he can get some signal to phone the emergency services, he's gonna have to get out of this gorge. Or at least, reach a place where its walls are lower and less obstructive.

• 24:12John Hopkins?

  Neil grimaces. He goes to put his phone back in his pocket. But he must be shaking more than he realizes. Because as he lowers his hand to his trouser pocket, he feels his phone suddenly slip from his fingers and fall with a muffled splash into the creek.

• 24:31John Hopkins?

  Neil dives forward, plunging his arm into the water. He manages to catch the device before it sinks out of reach. He pulls it from the weeds and frantically dries it off.

• 24:42John Hopkins?

  The screen has turned an ominous black. He holds his thumb down on the power button. Nothing. He tries again, but still, no dice.

• 24:55Speaker 03

  And so, I now knew how serious this event was. Nobody knows where I am. I haven't told anybody I've gone out walking. I've had a serious accident. And now I've lost my only means of communications. Now it's like, this is no longer a bad day, Neil.

• 25:14Speaker 03

  This is now life and death.

• 25:26Speaker 00

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• 25:55Speaker 01

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• 26:29John Hopkins?

  Neal takes a minute to weigh up his options.

• 26:33John Hopkins?

  With no means of communication, he is stuck. And because he didn't tell anyone exactly where he was going, or at what time, there is little chance of anyone coming to look for him anytime soon.

• 26:46John Hopkins?

  His only hope now, it seems, is to get himself to an area where he will be visible from the sky.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  I knew then that if I didn't do something, I'd just be found here as a sack of bones by somebody in the future. I knew that the only way I could increase my chances of being rescued was to get back to the clearing, where a helicopter, if they did come searching for me, could possibly see me. So that's my plan. Got to get back to that clearing.

• 27:13John Hopkins?

  He was at the clearing this morning. It can't be more than half a mile downstream. A distance he covered in 40 minutes, with the luxury of no broken bones. But traversing the rough, rocky terrain in his current condition, with a shattered ankle and a likely fractured wrist, could take hours.

• 27:33John Hopkins?

  Gritting his teeth, Neal tries to push himself upright. But as soon as he puts the slightest weight on his left side...

• 27:41John Hopkins?

  Excruciating pain.

• 27:44John Hopkins?

  Walking is out of the question.

• 27:46Speaker 03

  And I thought, I'm just going for crawl. And I was going to do what I can.

• 27:52Speaker 03

  I was on my bum. I would lean on my left elbow. I would hold my left leg up with my muscles. And I would just pull myself along the rocks.

• 28:03John Hopkins?

  Neil drags himself backwards across the boulders, keeping his injured left leg elevated off the ground. It's painfully slow going. Some of the boulders are the size of cars. Huge blocks of dark sandstone blocking his path.

• 28:21Speaker 03

  I had to back out, shuffle over to another location. Look over. Yep, this is doable. I can do this. And lower myself as carefully as possible without trying to hit my injured limbs. So I'd lean onto my right hand side and slide down a rock and just hope for the best when I hit the bottom.

• 28:41John Hopkins?

  Occasionally, when his left leg accidentally clips a rock, he braces for the inevitable surge of agony. But oddly, it doesn't come.

• 28:52John Hopkins?

  The pain he feels has a muted quality, as if his body, intent on reaching the clearing, has shut down its own receptors, filtering out anything that might slow his progress. Whatever the science, he is thankful for this small mercy.

• 29:08John Hopkins?

  With no phone to tell the time, Neil looks up at the sky. The sun has barely reached its zenith, which means he's only been going for about three hours.

• 29:18John Hopkins?

  It feels like he's been crawling all day.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  I thought, I need a rest. I just gotta take a break. And so I found a flattish, a nice spot that I could lay back and close my eyes. And I was taking the rest and it'd been about 15 minutes. So I started hearing a rustling sound. I think there's a snake.

• 29:41John Hopkins?

  His eyes snap open. Venomous snakes. This part of Australia is rife with them. From deadly common browns to the fearsome coastal Taipan tiger snakes and death adders. Any bushwalker knows to be on their guard for a sudden run in with one of these creatures.

• 30:01John Hopkins?

  Neil has grown up around snakes. By and large, they're only aggressive if provoked. This one is probably just curious.

• 30:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, no worries. Don't worry about it. Closed my eyes, I go back to sleep. Then the rustling started getting closer and closer and I thought, yeah, okay, I gotta deal with this. So I opened my eyes, it wasn't a snake. It was a two-meter goanna.

• 30:28John Hopkins?

  Suddenly, prowling towards him is a goanna, or monitor lizard.

• 30:35John Hopkins?

  A large, carnivorous reptile, known for their long claws, sharp teeth, and voracious appetites. At six and a half feet, this one is a fully grown adult. And Neil doesn't like the way it's looking at him.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  They will eat keratin, they'll eat rotten meat, and they'll take a chunk out of anything. Their bites will put me in far more danger of death than the injuries I've sustained already because the bacteria in their mouth is designed to break down meat when they eat it. So I'm thinking, now this is a problem.

• 31:10John Hopkins?

  The lizard slopes from the undergrowth, about ten feet from where Neil is lying.

• 31:16John Hopkins?

  Like a snake, goannas smell with their tongues. It's how they detect carrion and wounded prey. Neil glances down at his splinted ankle, where a dark spot of blood has started to seep through the bandage.

• 31:31John Hopkins?

  He looks back at the goanna, its tongue flickering as it creeps from the bush.

• 31:37John Hopkins?

  He keeps eye contact with the giant creature, and for a time, everything stands still.

• 31:45Speaker 03

  Once he realized I had an eye on him and watched him, you know, he's flicking his tongue and watching me and flicking his tongue, he walked about three meters to my left-hand side, went up and over a rock face, and disappeared.

• 32:03John Hopkins?

  Big sigh of relief.

• 32:06John Hopkins?

  Fending off a hungry goana is the last thing he needs right now. And not wanting to hang around for the reptile to come sniffing again, he pushes himself onto his elbows and resumes his punishing slog.

• 32:22John Hopkins?

  The hours grind on as Neil pushes, pulls, and heaves his way along the creek.

• 32:29John Hopkins?

  Eventually, the light turns golden and the shadows begin to lengthen around him. He's been going all day.

• 32:37John Hopkins?

  It's hard to say exactly how far he's travelled, but there is still no sign of the clearing. Surely he can't be far.

• 32:45John Hopkins?

  Still, he's utterly exhausted. He finds a flat section of rock and tugs his bag off his back.

• 32:54John Hopkins?

  He pulls out his sleeping bag, brought in case of emergencies, and wraps himself up in it. The temperature is dropping fast, and sleeping on this cold rock isn't going to do him any favours.

• 33:07John Hopkins?

  He pulls on a few extra layers and hunkers down. Before closing his eyes, he tosses back a couple of painkillers, swallowing the bitter pills with a swig from his water bottle.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  And I'd just lay there, and I would close my eyes and the moon would be at ten o'clock. Next time I wake up, the moon would be at twelve o'clock. Next time it'd be four o'clock, you know, and so I wasn't really sleeping, but I was lapsing in and out of restful sleep, I guess.

• 33:44John Hopkins?

  It's dawn the next day.

• 33:48John Hopkins?

  Cold and stiff from his restless night, Neil crawls out of his sleeping bag and turns to face the jungle.

• 33:56John Hopkins?

  His bruised body aches all over. Beneath the bloodstained bandage, his ankle throbs with a dull, persistent pain.

• 34:06John Hopkins?

  During the long, empty hours of the night, new anxieties began to creep in. What if he sustained internal injuries in the fore? What if his fractured leg becomes infected?

• 34:18John Hopkins?

  All these scenarios swirl around him as he shoulders his pack and sets off crawling once more.

• 34:27John Hopkins?

  All morning, Neil drags himself across the boulders, his broken bones shifting and scraping. He must be nearing the junction where the stream forks. The clearing lies right alongside it. But when he pulls out his map and tries to take a compass bearing, something seems off. If his orienteering skills are to be trusted, it appears he's only traveled a measly three hundred meters. Not even a fifth of a mile. This can't be right.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  So now the mine games start playing. It's day two. You crawled all day yesterday. You must have crawled for eight hours. You've got to be close to the junction. Why haven't we found the junction? Have you gone past the junction? You know? So I'm starting having doubts about where I am.

• 35:17Speaker 03

  You're just gonna die out here. There's no way you can do this. You know? You've tried and tried and you don't even seem to be moving on the map. Emotions are starting to kick in because I'm starting to worry about my family and people who don't know where I am are probably by now started to miss me. You know, it's Monday. Surely someone's missed me by now.

• 35:37John Hopkins?

  Above all, there's his children. After years of estrangement, Neil has finally started to make some inroads into repairing those relationships.

• 35:45Speaker 03

  I just started thinking, there's no way I want them to think that I've gone and abandoned them again or I've abandoned the idea of reconnecting with them. And I thought, I gotta get out of here.

• 36:01John Hopkins?

  With a renewed determination, Neil checks the map. If he is where he thinks he is, it can't be more than four hundred meters to the junction. Quarter of a mile tops. He just needs to get his head down and press on.

• 36:17John Hopkins?

  Off he goes, squirming over boulder after boulder.

• 36:22John Hopkins?

  His shoulders and biceps burn with the effort of dragging his own weight for more than twelve hours, but he doesn't let up.

• 36:30John Hopkins?

  He falls into a rhythm, sweat pouring off his brow, shunting and wriggling across the rocks.

• 36:37John Hopkins?

  At one point, his ears prick up. A muffled sound echoes off the walls of the gorge. Human voices drifting through the trees.

• 36:49Speaker 03

  I start hearing voices because the fire trail follows the creek system but a good 400 metres away. I could hear voices or people are walking down the fire trail. I start screaming it at the top of my lungs. "Help! Help! I'm seriously injured! I need help!"

• 37:09John Hopkins?

  Neil bellows until his voice is hoarse. His cries reverberate into the wilderness. He waits, not daring to breathe, straining his ears for a reply. And then he gets one.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  It turned out to be wampu pigeons. And the wampu makes a noise. "Wampu! Wampu!" It was echoing through the forest. It just sounded like muffled conversation of people. So I was dreaming that I was hearing people or hopeful that what I was hearing were people, but it was just a local pigeon.

• 37:45John Hopkins?

  Sick with disappointment, he carries on. Another couple of hours drag by, and still there's no sign of the junction.

• 37:54Speaker 03

  All sorts of things are doubting in my mind, you know. Where am I at? What am I doing? Still arguing with myself, looking at the map. No, I'm still going southeast. The compass says I'm still southeast. Why haven't I found this junction? I'm still in the same square I've been in for two days. So one kilometre square can't be right.

• 38:12John Hopkins?

  Neil studies the map again. The grids and contour lines swim before his eyes, blurring together into meaningless symbols.

• 38:24John Hopkins?

  He stops the map angrily back into his pocket. On he goes.

• 38:30John Hopkins?

  Soon enough, the sun's slanting rays tell him it's late afternoon. His second day is almost up. Neil lifts his head to check his whereabouts. And at last, there it is. The fork in the creek.

• 38:47Speaker 03

  I thought, wow, I've actually finally made it to the junction. I'm here. I've got a chance of survival now. I've got a chance of somebody finding me.

• 38:58John Hopkins?

  It has taken him two days to crawl a distance of 600 metres. But he has made it. Once again, Neil finds a flat section of rock and curls up in his sleeping bag. Gradually, the honeyed evening light turns a dusky blue.

• 39:19John Hopkins?

  And then, shortly after nightfall, he hears it.

• 39:25Speaker 03

  Not long after the moon came up, I heard helicopter. Someone already knows what's happened. They're gonna find me. But I'm a needle in a haystack, even if they're using thermal imaging. I'm a needle in a haystack out here because they don't know where to start looking for me or where I am exactly. But it gave me hope to think, okay, somebody's already worked it out. Help is on its way. My mood and my spirits are elevated instantly, so I'm gonna get rescued tomorrow.

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• 41:04John Hopkins?

  It's Tuesday morning.

• 41:07John Hopkins?

  At first light, Neil looks around the creek in anticipation. Surely today is the day that this nightmare will end.

• 41:15John Hopkins?

  By now, his absence must have been noted by someone. He heard a helicopter last night combing the area. That feels like proof that people are out looking for him.

• 41:26John Hopkins?

  But as the sun continues to climb, his confidence starts to wane.

• 41:33Speaker 03

  No people, no helicopter. So I start thinking, well, when a mountain rains, that there's a ridge road that goes along the whole ridge for about 30 kilometres. And it's unfortunately notorious for boy racers racing at night and the police monitor it by helicopter. So now my thoughts are, okay, the helicopter wasn't at it for me.

• 41:55John Hopkins?

  What if his assumptions are wrong? What if help isn't on the way?

• 42:00John Hopkins?

  Despondent Neil drags himself up the bank and into the clearing where he situates himself against the trunk of a stunted spindly tree.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  And I crawled over to that and I just laid out in the sun. And I stretched out my S.O.L. emergency sleeping bag. It's two metres by one metre, bright orange, on a green grass background. And I laid out in the sun and thought, I'm just gonna have to sit here and wait.

• 42:26John Hopkins?

  In the end, he doesn't have to wait long.

• 42:29Speaker 03

  I hear the helicopter again, and now the helicopter is behind me, but in a more rhythmic movement coming towards me. And I'm like getting real excited now because I'm thinking, okay, they're in a real slow search mode pattern, I've got a chance here. And the helicopter flew directly over the top of it. And if you've ever been in a helicopter and been involved in rescue, when you're in a helicopter, you're looking out to the sides, you're not necessarily looking out underneath.

• 42:59John Hopkins?

  His heart sinks. He can't believe his bad luck. The helicopter has managed to soar so perfectly over Neil that he will have remained in the aircraft's blind spot, directly underneath the fuselage.

• 43:15John Hopkins?

  He listens, helpless, to the sound of the rotors moving further away. But then...

• 43:23Speaker 03

  The helicopter did a circle around and they came in from my right hand side and they stopped directly above me and the helicopter began to manoeuvre backwards and horror and it was just like they found me, I'm going to be rescued and so great joy and relief of knowing that I've been found.

• 43:45John Hopkins?

  Neil squints up at the sky. The helicopter hovers, its powerful downdrafts agitating the forest canopy. The door slides open and two crew members are winched down to where he is sitting.

• 44:06Speaker 03

  It's really hard to explain it to somebody if you haven't had a near-death experience to understand that you are actually going to survive this. That release of endorphins, I was ecstatically happy and the paramedic said to me, "Why are you smiling?" I said, "Because I'm talking to you, I should be dead." And that was, that was it, I was just so happy to be alive.

• 44:34John Hopkins?

  Neil is strapped into a harness and winched up into the helicopter. Only 20 minutes later, he's being wheeled through hospital corridors, blinking up at the faces of the medical staff. Bizarrely, they all seem to know exactly who he is.

• 44:53Speaker 03

  I rushed me straight out of the helicopter, straight into ER. And people in ER are always saying, "Oh, you're that guy, we heard about you on the news, oh, we're so amazed, we're going to get to look after you today." I'm like, "I just landed here, you know, but they already know, they already know the story." I'm like, "Wow, this is incredible, you know, so people in ER are already full bottle on what I've gone through, you know, my story." So, yeah, the news had travelled so fast.

• 45:24John Hopkins?

  A convoluted sequence of events has led to his rescue. It was his boss who first raised concerns when Neil didn't report for work on Monday. The boss contacted Neil's sisters, for whom alarm bells began to ring immediately. With their brother's history of mental health struggles, they feared for his well-being. They contacted the Brisbane bushwalkers, who were able to figure out that Neil had gone missing while hiking up Cabbage Tree Creek. That was where the emergency rescue team focused their search, and where they eventually found him, badly injured, but alive.

• 46:01John Hopkins?

  After arriving at the ER, Neil is whisked into a ward where medics check his vitals and stick IV drips into his arms.

• 46:08Speaker 03

  They stabilized me and they said, "Okay, you're stable enough now that we can bring your family in." I brought my sisters in and it was quite a tearful reunion with my sisters because, you know, they thought I might have committed suicide and suddenly now they're seeing me. So it was a very joyful reunion with my sisters.

• 46:29John Hopkins?

  Soon, however, it's time to address his injuries. As well as shattering both his ankle and his wrist, further X-rays reveal that Neil has also crushed 20 vertebrae. It will take several complex operations to realign his broken bones and mend the damage to his spine. He is dosed up on strong pain relief, then wheeled into the operating theatre where a team of specialist orthopaedic surgeons carefully piece him back together.

• 46:58John Hopkins?

  After his operations, Neil must remain bed-bound as his bones heal. Complications arise as his body struggles to cope with the trauma that has been inflicted upon it. The pain he managed to suppress in the bush surges back with a vengeance in the hospital as he endures week after week of intensive treatment and exhausting rehab.

• 47:21Speaker 03

  It was a challenge every day, but I was keen to do it. I just wanted to get out of that hospital bed, out of that hospital room because I've been here the two, two and a half weeks looking at the ceiling, the TV. I just had enough fun to get out of that room. I'm not the kind of person that likes to sit and wait.

• 47:38John Hopkins?

  Eventually, Neil is allowed to go home. It takes several months to return to full health, but as soon as he's ready, he's back out doing what he loves: bushwhacking trails and climbing mountains.

• 47:51John Hopkins?

  But just as he's beginning to feel like himself again, something unexpected forces him back indoors.

• 47:59John Hopkins?

  Only a couple of months after leaving the hospital, the COVID-19 pandemic hits, and the resulting lockdowns leave Neil feeling just as powerless as before.

• 48:09John Hopkins?

  The sudden isolation of quarantine is strange and unsettling, but he manages to make peace with it.

• 48:17John Hopkins?

  As he did during his accident and subsequent rehab, he finds a path through this challenge too.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  I just thought, "Well, it's happened. You've just got to deal with it. Keep positive. Just keep moving on. Just don't worry about the things you can't affect." And so I just learned to stop worrying about little things and start looking at the bigger picture. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. So just enjoy life. Just enjoy what you're doing. Don't worry about what might happen next year when they decide they're going to close the Nashville Park or they're going to change the road system or the companies that you're working for in a merger. Forget all that then. That might happen. Live in the moment and appreciate what you're doing now. You can choose to be happy or you can choose to dwell on negativity. I've been a victim, but I don't choose to be a victim.

• 49:07Speaker 03

  I choose to be a survivor.

• 49:18John Hopkins?

  Next time, we meet professor, mountaineer, and environmental scientist John Orr. In the spring of 2014, the 44-year-old is leading a research trip in a remote corner of the Himalayas. Until one morning, when John experiences firsthand the dangers of doing scientific research on the roof of the world.

• 49:39John Hopkins?

  A hidden danger in the snow thrusts him into a seemingly insurmountable scenario. Tumbling into a freezing cold chasm that sinks into the very bowels of the mountain, it seems there's only one question: will John die a quick death or a slow one?

• 49:55John Hopkins?

  Trapped, critically injured, and surrounded by icy darkness, his only hope is an audacious, elaborate, and incredibly dangerous self-rescue. That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen right now, without waiting and without ads, by joining Noiser Plus today. Just click the banner at the top of the feed to get started.

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