Almost everything had gone wrong on Alec Luhn’s solo hike in a national park in Norway.
Luhn (38) had spent six days without food, water or a working phone, as he dealt with serious injuries. But then, miraculously, he was rescued from a remote and steep mountain this month.
“It was a really great ending to a story that started with a couple of bad decisions,” Luhn says in a phone interview from a hospital in Bergen, Norway. “Hopefully, there are things to be learned from it for other people as well.”
Here’s his story.
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Luhn and his wife, Veronika Silchenko, travelled to Norway in July for a vacation with his family.
After realising that they were staying near a national park with the country’s third-largest glacier, Luhn, an American climate journalist and an experienced hiker, decided to extend his trip to hike to it.
On July 31st, Luhn texted his itinerary to Silchenko, who had returned to their home in England, and then set off on a backpacking trip, heading into Folgefonna National Park from Odda, a nearby town. Silchenko did not expect to hear from him for a few days because of spotty phone service in the park.
Luhn planned to complete his hike on August 4th, catch a bus to Bergen and make his flight back to England.
“That was the plan,” Luhn says. “I didn’t get that far into it before disaster struck.”
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A series of bad decisions
Early in the hike, things started going wrong. (This, Luhn says, is when he began making bad decisions.)
The sole of his left boot started coming off after a few hours. He decided to tape the sole with athletic tape, which compromised the boot’s traction.
“I should have turned back and gone into Odda and bought some new boots,” Luhn says. Instead, he kept going. He passed gorgeous views and reached a height of nearly 4,000 feet.
“It was very steep terrain but I kept pushing through, and I made another bad decision,” he says. After 10pm, Luhn found a good camping spot. But instead of pitching his tent, he decided to press ahead.
Luhn also says he had not brought a GPS tracker.
That terrible feeling of falling
It was getting late and the terrain was steep. Then, Luhn took a misstep – and slipped and fell.
“I remember the terrible feeling of that fall beginning,” he says. He started picking up speed, and his backpack hit the rocks, causing his gear to fall out.
“I was spinning around really quickly and started bouncing around, like a pinball heading down the mountain,” Luhn says.
He landed on a rock, breaking his femur, fracturing his pelvis and a couple of spinal vertebrae, severely scratching his hands and hitting his head.
Then, he says, he must have passed out.
No water, no phone, barely able to move
Luhn woke up on August 1st aware that he was in a very bad situation.
His water bottle had fallen out of his bag during his fall, so he had nothing to drink.
His iPhone had fallen out of his pocket. He tried yelling to Siri to call emergency services, but his phone either was too far away or had been set to airplane mode (another mistake, Luhn says).
He could barely move.
He realised two things: Nobody would know to search for him until Monday, when he was scheduled to return to England. And he was not going to be able to get out of there on his own.
“I am going to need to stay here and just pull through until at least someone gets worried about me,” he recalls thinking. And then, “A lot of things were going to have to go right for me to survive.”
Desperate measures
On Saturday, Luhn started to worry about being without water. His mouth was so dry that it was impossible to eat the granola bars and peanuts that had not fallen out of his backpack.
He could think of only one solution.
I really felt like I wanted to survive and have a second chance at life
“I peed into one of my water pouches and then drank the urine to stay hydrated,” Luhn says. “I was so parched, I basically had to wash the granola down with my urine.”
He adds, “I had a big blister on one of my fingers, I even sucked the blood out of that to try to get a little fluid.”
It was not until a storm moved in on Sunday – weather that would hamper the search for him – that he could drink water again. He slurped rain from the creases of his sleeping mat and sucked on a wet bandanna.
Losing hope
On Monday and Tuesday, as the rain continued, Luhn started to lose hope. He was wet and cold. His feet were starting to lose circulation.
But unbeknown to him, his prediction had been correct: When he didn’t show up for his flight, Silchenko alerted the authorities, and by Monday night a major rescue mission had begun.
More than 50 rescue workers from the Norwegian Red Cross, using dogs, drones and experienced climbers, were looking for Luhn, in a search that took nearly two days.
“Most searches are over within a couple of hours,” Anja Kristin Bakken, a spokesperson for the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Norway, says in an email. “This one was extra challenging with heavy weather conditions.”
I’ve encouraged many people to go hiking, you just have to be safe about it. That’s what I plan to do in the future
But, she adds, “Finding Alec Luhn alive is a very good example of why we keep going.”
As he sat on the mountainside hoping to be rescued, Luhn says he focused on the present. When his mind wandered, he thought about the people he loved, including his wife and family.
“I really felt like I wanted to survive and have a second chance at life,” he says.
‘I may have just missed my only shot’
On Wednesday, August 6th, after his coldest night yet, the sun briefly broke through.
“Right about then, I heard a helicopter,” Luhn says.
Though he couldn’t stand, he started waving. “It was so close to me but it couldn’t see me,” he says. After about 45 minutes, the helicopter left.
“I thought: OK, well I may have just missed my only shot,” Luhn says.
Luhn wrapped his red bandanna around a tent pole in the hope that he would be seen. About 45 minutes later, a helicopter returned and Luhn started waving again.
“Finally, the side door of the helicopter opened and a guy waved at me,” he says. “That was the moment that I knew that I was going to be able to make it through.”
Luhn was taken to a hospital in Bergen, where he underwent surgery.
Two weeks later, he was still receiving treatment there, and says he was not yet able to walk because of frostbite on his feet.
Luhn says he hopes to return to hiking someday. “I’ve encouraged many people to go hiking, you just have to be safe about it,” he says. “That’s what I plan to do in the future.”
But first, he says, “I owe my wife a vacation to a warmer climate where there are no glaciers.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
