Trapped In The Canyon

I caught an episode of " I Shouldn't Be Alive" last night. Been a while since I've seen an episode. Most of them engage me, but some do more so than others. Things like laying close to death after being in a fight with a crocodile and having flesh ripping ants pile on you, or having to leave your son in a snow cave to find help, only to come withing seconds of death....these things make me shudder.

Last nights episode was about Danelle Ballangee. She is an 'extreme' endurance athlete. It doesn't take long to discover she has an accident in Moab Utah while on a trail run in a canyon. So obviously, I was gripped right away with this. She also has a dog named Taz who she got at a pound when she was a pup. Luckily, Taz would go with her on training runs.

Danelle has a huge fall ( like 60ft) and shatters her pelvis. Her skeleton is in two pieces!!! She is crawling , but is trapped. She drinks out a little mud puddle. It's below freezing at night and she does 1 sit up every 5 seconds for 6 hours to keep from falling asleep which would mean certain death. Whose up for 4000 situps?!! The next day she is in severe pain from the adrenaline being gone. She says I would have rather had 20 people with hammers hitting me than the pain I was in.

The second night is freezing as well and she is hallucinating and forming a lump in her belly from internal bleeding. This is when she tells her dog to go find help. Her dog has been circling the canyon and keeping watch on her. This is the hardest thing for her because she knows that death is knocking and sending Taz away is probably going to result in her dying alone. She finally urinates knowing that this will freeze and speed up hypothermia. Seeing her talk about this and break apart was just gut wrenching.

Through a series of very fortunate events, Taz leads a rescuer to her aid and she lives. And through a lot of pain , she's running again, married and has a child now. Wow! Talk about a focal point in your life. A real second chance in fact. I can't help but be inspired by her story. Sometimes I doubt I would have the mental toughness to endure such a horror. I know for sure though that I can look at my shoulder pain and think, you are nothing...nothing at all.