Out Alive from Backpacker

According to Florida Fish and Wildlife, there are about 10 unprovoked alligator attacks on humans every year. That puts your chances of being attacked by an alligator at one in 3.2 million. It may seem that alligators are easily enough avoided. But if, like Jeffrey Heim, your work is outside on the slow rivers of Florida, encountering an alligator is just another day at the office. 

A firsthand account of a free-solo accident in the Sierra Nevada.

For more than two weeks in 2018, the entire world was gripped by nonstop news coverage of the effort to rescue 12 boys and their coach from deep inside Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Northern Thailand where they were trapped by rising flood water. In this special episode of Out Alive, we'll hear in-depth from two of the most influential divers from this unprecedented rescue, and how their pursuit of an unusual and dangerous hobby made them some of the only people anywhere who would have a chance to save the lives of the boys and their coach.

This season of Out Alive is brought to you by Stillhouse, the official spirit of adventure. Stillhouse makes award-winning bourbon, vodka, and whiskeys that come in unbreakable 100% stainless steel cans… because the good times go where glass can’t follow. Learn more at stillhouse.com

We've learned a lot since we first started Out Alive, and the lessons have surprised us. Certainly, we've been indoctrinated to always tell someone where we're going and when to expect us, and as editors of Backpacker, we know all about the ten essentials. But the lesson we keep coming back to is that sharing--storytelling--is healing.

Dr. Alison Roy is a licensed clinical psychologist and trauma expert--she knows a thing or two about long-term mental recovery from a professional standpoint. But after she and her family encountered a traumatic event while on a hike in January of 2020, they got a whole new perspective on healing.

This season of Out Alive is brought to you by Stillhouse, the official spirit of adventure. Stillhouse makes award-winning bourbon, vodka, and whiskeys that come in unbreakable 100% stainless steel cans… because the good times go where glass can’t follow. Learn more at stillhouse.com

To a lone hiker, the woods teem with threats. There are wild animals, of course, and exposure to the elements. There are the looming risks of dehydration, starvation, and the terror that comes with the fall of darkness. But for some, worse than the fear of the woods themselves are the ruthless fabrications of one's own mind, especially in stressful situations.

Inner demons can be as powerful as a stroke of lightning or a sudden blizzard. In this story, we explore what happens when the biggest obstacle to survival, and only hope, is oneself. 

This season of Out Alive is brought to you by Stillhouse, the official spirit of adventure.

Stillhouse makes award-winning bourbon, vodka, and whiskeys that come in unbreakable 100% stainless steel cans… because the good times go where glass can’t follow. Learn more at stillhouse.com

Part 2: In every story we tell on this show, there is an element of the miraculous, someone who defies the odds and lives through a seemingly impossible situation in the wild, but we don't all see miracles the same way. For some, a miracle is falling off a cliff and being lucky enough to get caught by the branches of a welcoming tree. Or, running from a raging forest fire when, just in time, a rainstorm saves the day. But for others, miracles, aren't about luck or random natural occurrences. They are acts of divine providence. For Mary Grimm, coming so close to death in the mountains and making it back was exactly that. 

This season of Out Alive is brought to you by Stillhouse, the official spirit of adventure. Stillhouse makes award-winning bourbon, vodka, and whiskeys that come in unbreakable 100% stainless steel cans… because the good times go where glass can’t follow. Learn more at stillhouse.com

In every story we tell on this show, there is an element of the miraculous, someone who defies the odds and lives through a seemingly impossible situation in the wild, but we don't all see miracles the same way. For some, a miracle is falling off a cliff and being lucky enough to get caught by the branches of a welcoming tree. Or, running from a raging forest fire when, just in time, a rainstorm saves the day. But for others, miracles, aren't about luck or random natural occurrences. They are acts of divine providence. For Mary Grimm, coming so close to death in the mountains and making it back was exactly that. 

This season of Out Alive is brought to you by Stillhouse, the official spirit of adventure. Stillhouse makes award-winning bourbon, vodka, and whiskeys that come in unbreakable 100% stainless steel cans… because the good times go where glass can’t follow. Learn more at stillhouse.com

Sydnie Uetmoto and David McMahon were young pilots in Hawaii making their way through advanced levels of flight training when they got a call to crew a short flight together in a four-seater plane. But what should have been a routine route between two islands turned into every aviator’s worst nightmare.

This season of Out Alive is brought to you by Stillhouse, the official spirit of adventure. Stillhouse makes award-winning bourbon, vodka, and whiskeys that come in unbreakable 100% stainless steel cans… because the good times go where glass can’t follow. Learn more at stillhouse.com

There’s a special kind of appeal to a solo adventure—being out on your own, away from everything and everyone. Unless, of course, something goes wrong and you find yourself in serious trouble. In this gripping story by our friends at The Outside Podcast, we hear from Claire Nelson, who was seeking peace and solitude in the desert but ended up badly injured, all alone, and unable to call for help. To survive, she would have to hold on to the hope that eventually someone would find her.

This show is all about near-death experiences, and the lessons we hope to learn from those who made it Out Alive. Each of the stories we tell is incredible in its own right, but now and again we hear a tale of someone who seemed to survive something approaching miraculous, and we can’t help but marvel at their luck in the direst of circumstances. And it seems like these are the experiences that are so transformative that you wonder if they were actually in the wrong place at the right time. 

While it’s not a universal phenomenon for all survivors by any stretch, there are those who come so close to death, that the experience acts like a level reset, a wake-up call. 

It’s illogical, but also painfully relatable that for some of us, it’s only when we come face to face with dying that we remember what it’s really like to live.