On vacation in Norway with his family, Alec Luhn decided at the end of July to extend his stay to explore the Folgefonna National Park (southwest of the country) and approach an imposing glacier. Accustomed to the mountain, this American journalist goes alone in hiking, reassuring his wife who stayed in England by sharing his route, traces the daily The New York Times.
But very quickly, the first technical troubles occur. The sole of its shoe peels off, compromising its balance. Rather than turning back, he chooses to continue. A chain of unhappy decisions that will put it in great danger. After several hours of walking and despite the steep slope, the hiker continues his ascent until late in the evening. It was there that he slips and falls.
He does not know it yet, but the verdict is heavy: broken femur, fractured basin, damaged vertebrae, lacerated hands, bruised head, Alec Luhn is in dirty condition. His bag opened in the fall and his phone, his water and part of his equipment have disappeared. When he woke up, the 38 -year -old understands that he is seriously injured.
Unable to move, without means of communication and without water, he knows that his only chance is to wait for his absence to alert his wife, once his return flight was missed. In the meantime, Alec Luhn tries to hold on, despite a terrible thirst. His food rations are useless as his mouth is dry. In a desperate gesture, he drinks his own urine and his blood to try not to dehydrate too much, before recovering rainwater a few days later with his soaked bandana.
An extraordinary rescue mission
On August 4, noting that her husband did not take her plane, Veronika Silchenko alerted the authorities. Quickly, a vast operation was launched. About fifty rescuers, with dogs, drones and mountaineers, search the mountains in an execrable time. The company lasts two whole days, a rare duration according to the Norwegian rescue teams. Meanwhile, in the mountains, Alec Luhn, refrigerated and suffering from frostbite, tries to stay aware by thinking about his loved ones and clinging to the hope of an imminent rescue.
On August 6, after an icy night, a research helicopter passes nearby. Alec Luhn brandishly brandishes the arms, but the device walks away without locating it. Fearing to have let his only chance pass, he improvises a signal with his red bandana attached to a tent stake. Forty-five minutes later, the sound of the blades returns. This time, the crew of rescuers sees it. “Finally, the side door of the helicopter opened and a man gave me, it was then that I knew that I was going to survive”he said after his setbacks.
Emergency transported to Bergen, the journalist underwent several surgical operations. Two weeks after his nightmare, he was still hospitalized, unable to walk because of the frostbite. Despite the event, he hopes to be able to walk again and one day return to the hiking trails. But this misadventure taught him that when a shoe sole peels off … It is better to turn around.