Adam Greentree Nearly Died and Had to Be Emergency Rescued from the New Zealand Mountains
Adam Greentree Nearly Died and Had to Be Emergency Rescued from the New Zealand Mountains
Transcript
00:00 bag out me mattress because it's bright orange to flag them down in like the
00:03 clouds. So I've walked onto the far side of the tent and I can just every now and
00:09 then see these lights flashing and they're like a hundred yards below me
00:13 flying in the clouds and I hear this chopper like coming in I'm like it's
00:17 gonna it's I thought it's gonna smash straight into the mountain and you see
00:21 him coming in coming in like I mean it's like sheer rock straight below me and
00:24 the helicopters below me and then they seen that they were about to fly into
00:28 the rock wall and then they pulled back and then I just heard him leave and I'm
00:32 like fuck I'm here now for the next four or five days. What sucked was in the
00:38 panic of them saying yeah we're coming to pick you up now I packed up and got
00:41 super wet like packing up in the snow was starting to drizzle out of them
00:45 clouds so I was already wet my sleeving bag was wet everything was wet from
00:49 packing up I'm like shit there's I probably should start hiking out and
00:53 then so I looked at my GPS and it looked at the time like it was a pretty gradual
01:01 climb all the way down into this creek like so there's a glacier up above me
01:05 and it's been melting forever however many years and it's carved out like a
01:09 bit of a creek and so it looks safe and then I started climbing down and the
01:15 first I don't know two hours wasn't too bad like it was pretty gradual like bit
01:20 of rock hopping and slippery stuff and I had one little leap to do it was like two
01:28 and a half meters or a meter down on onto a rock to go out to this next rock
01:32 and it was like there was a big glacier pool below me and it sounds weird but
01:36 you calculate and everything as you're going you know so it's like this is the
01:39 best place to jump down because if I did fall at least I'm landing in water and
01:44 and that's just a two-second process in your head you know and that's happening
01:48 all day like there's never a point that you can switch off in that country like
01:52 you're constantly on the ball otherwise that's when you're gonna come unstuck
01:56 anyway what I didn't realize was the rock that I was jumping down onto had
02:01 actually quite a bit of a slope to it and it had like clear ice a layer of
02:05 clear ice on it you gotta remember I've got this chemie in my backpack and
02:09 friggin a wet wet everything because I packed up in the wet so the pack weighs
02:14 a lot and it weighs a lot anyway because you're going back for like 14 days man I
02:19 hit this rock and my feet come on out from under me that fast it like it was
02:23 just like full chest weight on the rock bang started sliding off the rock
02:27 backwards so I'm on my stomach sliding backwards legs going first and I slide
02:32 off the back of that rock and I got a heavy backpack on so it just pulled me I
02:36 just started plumbing and down to this ice-cold water and like back neck first
02:42 straight into the water and I just remember hitting the water it pulled me
02:45 all the way under like it like it was a good enough fall probably six seven
02:48 meters down into it from that where the rocks lit off and it pulled me under I
02:53 just remember my breath getting sucked out of me like like I mean like it's
02:57 crystal clear like that blue water straight off a glacier and it ripped me
03:03 down and then sort of I struggled to come back up get to the surface and by
03:07 the time I got to the surface because it's flowing pretty hard it was pushing
03:11 me into one of the drainage chutes from it and then so I hit this drainage chute
03:16 sort of scramble and trying to grab on and then it pulled me down legs first as
03:19 well like down into the chute in the next lot of water then by the time I got
03:24 to that point there was no there was no going back up there was no chance I
03:28 would go back up because it's dropped me into a spot where I wasn't on the sides
03:33 of the bank anymore I was stuck in this glacier milk and then I end up getting
03:38 out of there and I got to the next point there was like a big tree like falling
03:43 down in the water there's no trees on the side it's just whatever's been
03:45 washed down over the years like a big stump and I end up wrapping my hand
03:49 around that my arm around that get to my legs and then like weighed twice as much
03:54 again because now everything's you know full of water and soaked you know the
03:59 pack on yeah I still got the pack on and then and then I got like got up on the
04:03 rock then it's just like one rock in all this water and then it's a fucking long
04:08 story so I'll probably skip a few bits but I end up like fighting with it for
04:14 the rest of the day and then I end up falling over another two times one time
04:19 I actually had to volunteer to jump I had nowhere to go I was just like stuck
04:24 in this little canyon in the water and I literally had to come up with the guts
04:29 to be like jump into the next water chute which is just like a slide cut out
04:33 of the rocks from the water running down there for fucking millions of years and
04:37 I've still got my backpack on I can't leave nothing because that could be what
04:41 saves me at the end of the day I've got a sleeping bag or other clothes in there
04:44 I got meat from this chamois I still I had this skin from the chamois I still
04:50 had everything in there and I like have you ever done anything where you fucking
04:58 like probably got to convince yourself to do it because like I was I didn't
05:01 know if that was gonna kill me going to the next step or if that was gonna save
05:04 my life and then so you're calculating all that and then having to have the
05:08 guts to actually jump into the next chute of water and go down man I fucking I
05:13 just remember just fucking doing it and I jump perfect I landed on the backpack
05:16 I put all the weight on the backpack slid into the next bit just like pump
05:21 with adrenaline right so I'm not even feeling the cold at this point because
05:24 adrenaline is just going sick and I end up going down a bit further and then I
05:30 could just hear this like deafening sound of water and I'm like fuck me dead
05:35 like what next because constantly it seemed to be like what next what next
05:38 what's next and I hear this deafening sound of water and I get to the fucking
05:42 edge and it's like free 400 yards straight straight down oh my god and
05:47 it's just like like then it was like no there's no going any further you're like
05:52 to go further is definitely deaf you need to work something out here you know
05:56 and it got to the point it takes a lot of courage to even be like I need
06:01 someone to save me like at least for me because I've all like I've always you
06:05 know like it's it's the way that you're brought up the will the way that I was
06:11 brought up because you know I've never had the father figure in my life I didn't
06:15 have any of that so it was always everything I do I do for myself that's
06:18 why I never usually ask people for help this is the biggest ask for help they're
06:23 fucking is right and it's pressing the SOS button on the emergency device you
06:28 know and it's like and I sat there for 20 minutes and still pump with
06:32 adrenaline over that time now fuck like getting adrenaline talking about it now
06:36 and then realizing there's fucking definitely no way off here it's time to
06:43 hit the button like this is where you don't get to see your family again or
06:46 you don't get to do any of this again or live life you need to hit the button and
06:49 just fucking like still hitting the button hurt and you got to hold it in
06:52 for like 10 or 20 seconds it was fucking the longest 10 seconds of my life and
06:57 like at this point I've taken the backpack off I took a jacket off because
07:01 it was just so fucking heavy and wet and it's sitting there and I'm holding the
07:06 button in for like 10 seconds and it's like then it's like SOS you know and
07:10 it's like oh shit and then but there's no reply to it or anything like that at
07:15 that point it's it sort of just says the signal successful as in scent and that's
07:21 about it and it's getting light and I'm like I need to set up some sort of camp
07:26 I need to go for my pack see what I can use like what's going to work out here
07:31 and I pull me pack out and then like I've only got a spot that's like the
07:35 size of one body laying down to even stand on in this area and it's barely
07:41 flat the only thing that's kept it flat is the trees falling off from up at the
07:46 alpine tops at some point in its life falling down there and then all the
07:51 shale and rock that's fallen off these big washouts with the water has like
07:55 leaned up against that big stump so it's like laid out a flat bit and I could fit
08:01 about three quarters of a little one-person tent on there and so I set
08:06 the tent up there I set the mattress that I was telling you that I was trying
08:12 to flag down the helicopter with I'd set that just on there that just sat on
08:15 there and then I pulled the sleeping bag out and it was fucking soaked like the
08:20 sleeping bag was drenched and I'm like it's still gonna be something and went
08:25 for the rest of me pack I pulled the chamois skin out and sort of laid that
08:29 there hoping it'd give me some warmth as well and I've like stripped down then
08:33 all the like bigger layers to try and get that off me and I climbed in this
08:38 wet cold sleeping bag which is the worst feeling fucking ever in that situation
08:43 like you do you start you're starting to think like this is this is the end this
08:47 might be death and I climbed in there I was trying to get warm and then I kept
08:53 looking at that signal but my phone like it's through my phone my phone it's
08:58 usually through my phone sorry my phone had already died so it's just for the
09:02 little device and remember the old phones how you had to go for the fucking
09:05 alphabet on them to type a message I thought I'm trying to type a message to
09:10 my buddy that was keeping tabs on me as all this was happening and and the
09:15 message just went out as in I need help and he like like I've been around this
09:19 dude for forever he's one of my best friends so he knows what I'm like he he
09:22 knows if I'm like I fucking need help that it's not good you know and that
09:27 message I didn't know if it went out or not I had to turn it off because I had
09:31 like four five percent in it so I shut it down anyway I'm laying in there of
09:37 laying in there and then obviously the adrenaline's coming off and I think I
09:42 dozed off for a little while it might have been 40 minutes or so it's like a
09:46 power nap and I woke up and my body was just quivering flat out like like it
09:54 from fucking deep in it was just quivering flat out and that feels like
09:59 death that probably that actually it scared me because I like I couldn't
10:05 stop I was just fucking quivering flat out like hyper like my core is trying to
10:09 warm back up yeah and it took me to took me a little while to think about that
10:13 because I shut I end up shutting myself down I stopped myself shaking and then
10:18 I was like you fucking idiot that's exactly what your body's supposed to do
10:21 it's trying to warm up and then I sort of loosened up again and it started
10:24 shaking and then I went to move this arm and this leg and they wouldn't move like
10:30 I couldn't move them and then I was like oh shit like as in the adrenaline it was
10:34 from that first fall I think or it was from the jump that I did I don't know if
10:40 I'd bruised it I don't know it's about nearly hypothermic I don't know what
10:45 really happened there just I just couldn't move that leg and I couldn't
10:48 move this arm so then that scared me a bit too and I started thinking about Kim
10:53 and the kids and like like shook me up and then and I got teary as well which
10:58 was weird because then I fucking warmed up like when all that happened I was
11:02 starting to warm up anyway I tried to sleep you can't sleep here in a wet
11:06 sleeping bag it's free like everything's fucking frozen around you there's
11:09 fucking rocks rolling from the top of the fucking mountain down into the river
11:14 that what the creek that's now turned into a river there's rocks rolling down
11:17 there you listen to that all night there's like smaller debris and rocks
11:21 hitting the tent and it's just like and you can't move because I'm on this pad
11:24 this big anyway I don't even know how but the morning came at some point I got
11:31 up turn the GPS back on no there was no message no nothing so I hit the SOS one
11:36 last time and I held it in nothing nothing I think I sat around for the
11:42 first couple of hours of morning like just holding me chest and stuff like
11:46 that trying to get warm again and I got to the point and it's like no one's
11:52 coming for you like it's fucking on you and that was the best thing that
11:55 happened to me because it was almost like I hit the button and it was almost
11:59 like a give up as in like oh someone's coming for me it's fine you know and
12:04 then it wasn't till I realized and said to myself no one's fucking coming just
12:08 fucking get up and do something and I was like I'm fucking gonna start a fire
12:13 even if it takes me half a day at least this is turning let's try and start a
12:19 fire let's do something you know like fucking stay in it and then so I started
12:23 pulling all the different rubbish out of me bag that I carried from the trip
12:27 started piling that up there's like no branches or anything around so then I'm
12:33 back at that tree where my tent was and I'm trying to carve into that tree like
12:37 to try and get into the middle of it try and find some dry because you know it's
12:41 been raining for you know a day and a half now maybe even longer down low
12:46 because I descended so far down and then I'm trying to get in there and I'm like
12:50 I'll burn the tent I'll burn what else can I burn you know I started thinking
12:54 about all the things that I can burn I'm like yeah if you're here for another
12:57 night you can't that you can't burn any of that right so I left the tent set up
13:01 left the chamois skin in there and then I just got it to the point where I was
13:06 like I could probably start a fire now it's not gonna last long because there's
13:09 no wood on it it's just all you know trash that I had in my bag and then I
13:14 started thinking what else can I do I'm like you know I'm gonna build a fucking
13:17 helicopter pad because there was no you know it was all shit like no commercial
13:22 helicopter could live that land there only a rescue helicopter at that point
13:26 could pick me up from where I was because they you know they could drop
13:29 down a rope and lift me up but if I build an actual pad I knew once the
13:34 weather cleared I could just call in the commercial helicopter to pick me up so I
13:39 was like fuck it and I'm so I start grabbing like rocks it's just rocks
13:43 everywhere and I was gonna build basically a retaining wall and then
13:46 start feeling it it would have taken days to do but I was just keen to keep
13:51 busy and then I was fully trapped I could not go back up I couldn't go up
13:55 the creek I couldn't go up the sides I definitely couldn't go down low and that
13:58 roars the whole time right beside me just screaming that water pumping down
14:01 there anyway so I start collecting rocks and then I thought I heard a fucking
14:08 helicopter and I was like fuck and this is like this is five or six hours now
14:13 after morning and I'm listening and it's getting louder I just see this fucking
14:18 big helicopter bank up this like it's a fucking you're in a draw system in
14:24 between these massive mountains and it just comes cruising straight around and
14:28 I was like holy fuck like I was like so fucking pumped and then this arm still
14:34 wasn't working I got this leg to start working in the morning this arm still
14:38 wasn't working properly and I was so fucking pumped and the dude comes around
14:42 and he gives me the thumbs up oh fuck man my thumb must have been so straight
14:47 I was like this you know I was so excited
14:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]