![]() ![]() ![]() He was suffering from hypothermia and rescue workers needed to airlift him out on a helicopter but it was snowing so they all had to spend the night at the site. Rescue workers found her suffering from hypothermia, park officials said in a statement.Īfter rescue workers found Osmun, it took them two hours to get his leg free from the quicksand. McNeill said she felt like she was going to faint when she finally spoke with dispatchers. It took her three hours to reach a location with cellphone service so she could call 911. “I kept telling myself: ‘He would do it for me,'” McNeill said. She left him with warm clothes and decided the fastest way to get help would be to swim down the river, which was waist-deep with frigid waters, rather than taking a trail. With no cellphone service in the remote area, they decided McNeill would have to go for help. She tried to pry his leg out with a stick, but realized that effort would not work. The trouble for Osmun and McNeill began about four hours into the couple’s hike on a popular route called “The Subway” in the southern Utah park. “When water cannot escape, it creates a liquefied soil that cannot support weight and creates suction,” Baltrus said. Osmun had stepped into a small hole filled with it, Baltrus said. Quicksand can form in saturated loose sand and standing water - the combination found on the river bed trail Osmun and McNeill were hiking, said Aly Baltrus, Zion National Park spokeswoman. “And then toward the end I thought I wasn’t going to make it.” “I thought for sure I would lose my leg,” Osmun said. Ryan Osmun, 34, of Mesa, Arizona, told NBC’s “Today” show that he hallucinated at one point while waiting several hours alone after his girlfriend Jessika McNeill left him last Saturday to get help. When that didn't work, I dug frantically with my bare hands, but it was useless-the water filled in instantly, preventing any progress and freezing my fingers.SALT LAKE CITY - A man who was stranded for hours in frigid weather with his leg sunk up to the knee in quicksand at a creek in Utah’s Zion National Park said Tuesday that he feared he was would lose his leg and might die because the quicksand’s water was so cold. I tugged with all my strength, trying to brace with my free left leg. Jessika was safe-the nearby mud was solid-but now I was stuck. I lunged forward and pulled her out by her torso, but in doing so, my own right leg sank to the knee. She had sunk to her knees and couldn’t get free. There was no way around the pool, but it looked shallow so, testing the footing with the walking stick, we began to make our way across. I helped Jessika over large rocks and found a sturdy walking stick for balance.įour miles in, a pond-size puddle blocked the trail. Snow dusted the ground when we set out at 8 a.m. Our route would take us 10 miles round-trip to the Subway, a tunnel-like canyon accessed via boulder scrambles and creek crossings. Six hours prior, I’d embarked on a day hike in Zion with my girlfriend, Jessika. I listened for footsteps or voices, but heard nothing except the gusts rippling the water around me. Only a chilly wind broke the silence of the ravine. The contrast of white atop the rust sandstone and pines looked lovely-I tried to focus on that instead of the numbness in my trapped leg. As told to Zoe Gates.Ī FRESH LAYER of snow settled on my shoulders and hat. ![]() Trapped In Quicksand Backpacker | November - December 2019 Ryan Osmun, 35, took a wrong step while hiking in Zion National Park in February and spent 10 hours stuck in the mud. ![]()
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