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It's July the 21st, 2020, in the Alps, near the summit of Mont Blanc, on the French-Italian border. A howling wind blasts the face of climber Dan Acqua. Propped up against a snowbank, 15,000 feet above sea level, his head is slumped forward onto his chest. His breathing is labored, rasping. He drifts in and out of consciousness. Shards of ice encrust his ski mask. But through the gaps, he can just make out the contours of the ridge.
The wind was horrendous. It had to be 50 mile an hour, 60 mile an hour.
If you're up that high and the wind's that horrendous, it really did hit you. Thankfully, he's not alone. From somewhere nearby, screaming through the blizzard, Dan's climbing partner, Matt, tells him to hold on. That help is on its way. But will a rescue really be possible in this weather? As if sharing Dan's train of thought, Matt yells at him to try and move. They need to see if he can at least stand. But it's no use. Dan can't even wiggle a toe.
I couldn't move my legs. It was so weird. I couldn't move my legs. I thought, right, it's all over. And the thought of praying didn't even enter my head. Overridingly, I just wanted to say goodbye to my missus. And that was about it. Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories.
These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives. In this episode, we meet 54-year-old Dan Acqua. Outside of his death-defying day job as a firefighter, the Londoner enjoys nothing more than the thrill of scaling a mountain. But on this particular expedition, Dan and his friend Matt find themselves trapped right at the summit of Western Europe's tallest peak. While both climbers' lives are in danger,
One of them is more mobile than the other. A decision will have to be made, and their friendship will face the ultimate test. They were telling him he had to leave me there, basically. The helicopters couldn't fly because of the conditions. They dug a hole, tried to make me feel comfortable, and they were going to leave me on the mountain. They were going to get Matt out, and that was it. I'm John Hopkins from Noise of This, his real survival stories. July the 17th, 2020, just before dawn in the Alps.
Dan works under the light from his head torch. He's preparing his first pitch at the base of the Aiguille Noire de Pouterey. This vertical granite spire is just the first of several ascents they will be tackling. It marks the beginning of the Pouterey Integral, one of the most iconic ridge climbs anywhere in the world. Three days of rock climbing, ice climbing, abseiling and alpine hiking lie in store.
over a series of exposed, soaring peaks connected by ice gullies and snow-filled chutes, all the way up to the summit of Mont Blanc. At 54, Dan is a little older than most of the climbers who attempt this infamous route, but that hardly deters him. You've got one life. I don't believe in an afterlife. I feel that you've got to grab every day you can when you can, and if you don't, although if you're not around, you won't regret it.
As a firefighter back home in London, Dan is used to risk. A key way to mitigate danger, whether extinguishing a blaze or scrambling up a mountain, is to surround oneself with the right kind of people. People like his climbing partner, 38-year-old Matt Tomlinson.
A lot of people say he'd be the polar opposite of me. I'm sort of a grumpy old git. And Matt's, he's very outgoing. He's always positive. He's always the life and soul of the party. He's very funny. He's witty. Yeah, he's about 15 years younger than me. We've become really good friends, you know. We share the same passions. Dan and Matt met at their local gym. Since then, they've climbed together all over the globe. Though Dan is the first to admit that he isn't the world's most elegant mountaineer.
If there's a mistake to be made in the mountains, I will make it. From getting my tongue stuck on a cold piece of iron to falling down crevasses, I've done it all. The same can't be said for Matt, who seems to get better every year.
I taught him all he knows about ice climbing and annoyingly now he's a little bit stronger than me. But that's the way it goes and he's very good, very, very good. He's a much better rock climber than I am, much stronger, younger, fitter, everything. But he's a great guy and we get on very well. We get on very well. With each expedition, Dan and Matt worked their way up through more challenging ascents. But then, in early 2020, everything came to a grinding halt.
And then the pandemic hit and obviously Matt was, he's a sound engineer, he was shut down from work so he was stuck at home.
I was working, obviously being in the fire service, we didn't shut down. So for me, it wasn't quite so bad. But then we just started training together as part of the bubble because he's got a loft where he trains. That was towards when they allowed you to have a bubble, probably towards the end of May. And we fixed on the thought that, you know, if they allowed travel, maybe we could do a climb in the Alps together.
where better to make their long-awaited return to the great outdoors than at Mont Blanc. As soon as the lockdowns were eased, Dan and Matt began planning in earnest. Dawn on July 17th. Dan and Matt squint up at the towering southern face of the Aiguille Noire, the first major obstacle on their route. The two climbers are eager to get going, and with good reason. According to the weather forecast, they've only got a brief window before a storm blows in, four or five days at most.
They had originally planned to spend several days doing practice climbs, the purpose being to allow the body to adjust to the decreased oxygen levels experienced at high altitude. But with the storm inbound, Dan and Matt have been forced into a decision, delay, and risk missing out, or head off and hope for the best.
We thought we'd be able to do it in three to four days and we'd be able to climatize on the route because otherwise we wouldn't be climbing anything and we'd be just spending money in Chamonix drinking and doing not much. So we made the calculated decision to jump on it. With the beams of their head torches weaving like searchlights, Dan and Matt set off up the Aiguille Noire. Dan completed this section before, on an earlier visit to the Alps, but today
Something feels different. Under the weight of his 35-pound pack, he's wheezing a little more than usual. And I thought, my God, I'm feeling it. I could feel it in my lungs. I could feel I was slow. I didn't feel a sense of panic because I thought I could just push my way through it like I've always done.
like blunder my way through. Because like most people spend seasons in the Alps doing these routes and I've always spent a week or ten days at the most, I thought I could arrogantly, I thought I could carry on doing that at my advanced years. But he's still confident that his body will adjust. Colour seeps into the dawn sky. The granite turns golden beneath their tools as they pick their way up the vertical rock face all through the morning and into the afternoon.
Later, as the shadows lengthen across the range, they prepare to stop for the night. Despite their focus, they are way behind schedule.
the first day. We didn't get much further than halfway up the Aguilnois de Puterie when usually most parties get to a place called, I think it's called the Craverie Bivouac, which is not only at the summit of the Aguilnois de Puterie, but you abseil down a place. It's a col called the Brest-de-Dame-des-Anglais and the Craverie Bivouac's on the other side of that. So we were miles away from where we should have been.
But still, they're not too worried. The storm is still four days off. As long as they are acclimatized soon, they should be able to pick up the pace. They lay out their bivvy bags and settle down for the night. Then the next day we got to the summit of the Agua Nual de Putri again. We were slow, overtaken by parties that had started that morning.
and we got to the top at about half three, four and instead of abseiling and going for it, I thought I don't really want to be abseiling into this place called the Brest de Dam de Zongle which is pretty notorious for rockfall. It's a pretty dangerous place. Dan and Matt decide to end their second day early near the summit of the Aguil Noir. It's another calculated decision. They want to stay out of the way of the falling rocks. Still, it's not an entirely straightforward call to make.
Stopping prematurely will set them back another few hours. The following morning, they're kicking themselves. After abseiling down, they discover that they could have camped safely at the bottom after all. The delays are mounting and they're still moving slowly. Later on, Dan and Matt have made it about halfway along the knife edge of the Pouterey Integrale. They pause to drink in the view.
The ridge traces a jagged path from the peak of Mont Blanc down to the valley floor, where wildflower meadows are visible through the midday haze. Beyond, the sprawl of the Alps recedes into the distance, a ribbon of white peaks below the azure sky. It's an incredible panorama. Turning, Dan lifts his gaze towards the summit. Shrouded in mist, the pinnacle of Mont Blanc stands sentinel over them.
But as the third day wears on, their goal seems further and further away. Dan and Matt have been melting snow to drink. It's their primary source of fresh water. Except it isn't fresh at all. This is a major alpine route and it's high season. And where climbers are ascending quickly with little gear, they often urinate and defecate directly onto the mountain. Consuming the snow can have dire repercussions.
I mean, people poo all over the place. You could just never keep clean. So about the second day, towards the end of the second day, we were having diarrhea. And so we were not hydrating at all, which is what you should do when you're trying to acclimatize. And I just noticed, we thought we were climbing well, but then we weren't really at all. The climb is turning into a grueling slog.
The next challenge is the Aiguille Blanche, the snowier, bulkier cousin of the Aiguille Noire. Closing in on the final 1000 meters, the temperature plummets. A shrill wind howls through the valley. The rock wall rises above them like a frozen wave. Shivering, Dan and Matt grit their teeth and attack the face. Methodically, painstakingly, they ascend. Night falls suddenly in the Alps, and before they know it, darkness has surrounded them yet again.
They flick on their head torches and drag themselves higher. They can't stop here. And we got to the top and then, well, Matt got to the top before me and all I could hear was howls of despair is what I could call it. And I came up to him, I said, what's up, man? He said, we're on the wrong route. And we looked around and it did look like that there was an abyss between us and this snow slope that was the actual summit of the Agua Blanche de Puterie mountain.
Because it's so dark, you couldn't see. And we knew that there was a storm coming in, not the next day, but the morning of the day after. And we were thinking, how do we get out of here now? We thought we were totally on the wrong mountain. Literally hundreds, if not a thousand needles came down like the heavens were falling. I'm Natalia Petruzzella from BBC Radio 4. This is Extreme Musclemen.
When you're muscular, when you're big, you get respect. This is the story of the biggest illegal steroid operation the United States had ever seen and the lengths to which we'll go in pursuit of perfection. Extreme Musclemen. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Dan and Matt set up camp with their spirits low. They'll have to wait until morning to figure out what to do next. But when dawn breaks on day four, it brings a welcome realization.
They are on the correct part of the mountain after all. There's no abyss separating them from the next summit. The way forward is clear. But last night's panic does reveal something about their mental state, a symptom of their fatigue and dehydration. Though they can laugh it off now, it doesn't bode well for the challenge ahead. We thought, right, we're on the right route. The weather's good. We'll be off today. So we relaxed. We were just too leisurely. We thought that the route was in the bag. It's been tough going.
But the storm is scheduled to blow in either tonight or tomorrow morning, and by late afternoon they should be standing on top of Mont Blanc. From there, it's a swift descent to the first alpine hut, where they can kick back and have a beer. The two Brits continue along the ridge, but still, they're moving slowly. Too slowly. They abseil down into a snow-filled gully, then trek toward the base of the final rock climb. But as they trudge over the ground, Dan notes the warm sunshine prickling his neck.
It occurs to him that the snow they're walking on has been in the direct glare of the sun all morning. When you get a snow or a glacier bumping up against rock you've got a crevasse called the Bergschrund and you usually have to cross it. It can get technical, it's almost certainly quite deep depending on what time of the season you come to it and if there's a snow bridge leading across it then
your quids in, but if the sun's been on it, you can fall in and if the snow bridge gives way, you're pretty screwed. Dan warily scans the ice crystals, twinkling beneath his boots. Anyway, I sort of tiptoed across this snow bridge and I managed to put a device, a cam device, which is you press it in and you put it into a crack, it expands and then you clip into it and it offers a bit of protection if you fall. And I managed to get this cam device into the rock.
and then I fell. He hears a soft crumpling sound as the snow bridge caves in around him and he's airborne. The next second, the rope around his waist tightens, his body jerks violently and his head slams against the icy wall of the crevasse with a sickening crack. It's about two in the afternoon. Dan holds himself back up and over the lip of the crevasse. He collapses in a heap. Matt rushes over to check on his partner. He doesn't seem to be injured from the fall itself.
but he's a little dizzy from the bang he took to the head. Dan gets to his feet, and the two climbers proceed with even greater caution towards the base of the escarpment. But as they make their first few pitches up the rock face, Dan starts to feel a little peculiar, like a thick fog has enveloped his brain. This is when I started thinking, hang on,
I didn't know if I was tired, dehydrated or bashed up or suffering from altitude sickness or a combination of all of those. But my balance started to go. Matt led off. We were moving together again. And I remember calling him a guy called Jeff and thinking he was another guy called Chris. And I knew there was something not right. They should be over the summit by now. Instead, they're still several hundred meters below it.
With the weather closing in fast and their food running out, they can't go back the way they came. They've little choice but to push on. Before they know it, dusk is settling across the mountain. Dan is really struggling now with the technical demands of the climb. He's off balance and his head is spinning. By the time they finally reach the top of the cliff, it's well past midnight. The summit of Mont Blanc lies directly ahead, up one final steep slope. But the physical state of the climbers is only getting worse.
It was dark, it started snowing, heavy wet snow and then I remember having an attack of diarrhea so I had to stop. We'd both been suffering from severe diarrhea, we were totally dehydrated. It's 4 o'clock in the morning now. Aside from the odd stop to catch their breath, Dan and Matt have been climbing for almost 24 hours straight. A ferocious gust of wind rips above them. Dan can hear icy shards clattering against the back of his helmet.
The storm has arrived. They're still near the base of the 80-degree slope that leads up to Mont Blanc summit. The nearest refuge is on the other side of the mountain, about 500 meters down, an emergency shelter called the Vallow Hut. They need to stay calm and move carefully. But as Dan sets his sights on the mountain's pinnacle, he starts scrambling up to it, his crampons skittering over the ice. Matt struggles to keep up.
I remember just thinking, "I'll get to that ridge. I'll get to that ridge. I'll get to that ridge. I've got to get Matt up to that ridge." And I remember there was a sort of a snow cave in the ridge. And I remember asking Matt if there was a guy in there with a gun. I was so far out of it. And he said, "Well, no, Dan, there's not." And I was totally paranoid that when I climbed past this little snow cave,
There was a bloke in there with a gun. I totally lost it by then, mate. Totally gone. Concussion plus altitude sickness. A vicious combination. Added to that, the fatigue and dehydration. It's the perfect storm of confusion. And that's before you factor in the actual storm swirling around them. It was a pretty surreal experience. I remember there was a weird smell in my nostrils.
I was severely dehydrated by that point. I was moving at a... I thought I was... I mean, that bit, he said I moved very, very, very quickly and I probably put my body totally into the red line. It's approaching dawn when Dan finally climbs onto the exposed summit of Mont Blanc. This should be the joyous, epic high point of their journey. Instead, it's a grim picture, a mass of grey cloud and sleet.
I remember coming onto the summit ridge and being hit by a wind that I could not believe.
And then we were on the summit ridge a while and that's when things really started to slip because that's when I passed out. Slowly, Dan's eyelids crack open. He doesn't know where he is. In the frigid gloom, he can just make out a wall of ice rising directly above him for what seems like miles before culminating in a slender crack of faint grey light. He's fallen into another crevasse.
I remember hanging on my harness. I don't remember much apart from hanging on my harness and then hearing a screaming in the background, which was obviously Matt, because what had happened was he said I just passed out backwards. Matt must be anchored to the summit ridge by his ice axe, holding Dan's weight. His quick thinking has saved both of their lives, but the ice could still give way at any moment.
Somehow, Dan needs to rally himself and begin climbing out of the crevasse. He can hardly stay awake. Barely conscious of what he's doing, he swings his own axe into the wall and kicks out with his crampons, hauling himself up on the rope, inch by inch. Thankfully, his body seems to know what needs to be done, even if his mind doesn't.
The whole thing was a blur. I managed to climb up and out of it with one axe and two crampons. I felt 20 or 30 metres. I honestly can't remember. I couldn't tell you. And then I managed to climb up and then I passed out again. When he comes to, Dan is only fleetingly aware of sounds and images. A flash of sky, the screaming wind, Matt's face looming over him.
The feeling of being dragged through the snow. The next thing he knows, he's in a snow hole just below the ridgeline. Matt has built him a temporary refuge.
He woke me up at some time as well when I was out of it on the ridge and he'd managed to find a ledge just down out of the ridge, out of the wind and he dug a snow hole for me and he managed to get me into the snow hole. He said he cajoled me, I sort of was moving and he made me safe with the ropes in the snow hole. Matt reassures Dan that help is on its way. He's actually managed to call Mountain Rescue on his mobile.
The PGHM, the Outdoor Specialist State Police, are on their way from Chamonix. But up here, death from exposure is still a very real possibility. Matt tucks Dan as far away from the wind as he can.
He'd put my down jacket on. He'd put the Therm-a-Rest, which is a thermal sort of blanket, for want of a better word. It's a folding sort of insulated blanket that you lie on to sort of stop heat escaping through your body into the ground, into the snow hole, and made me as comfortable as he could while he waited for the PGHM, which are the gendarmes, the mountain rescue guys. Dan figures he's got at least one serious head injury, probably two.
And, alarmingly, he can't feel his legs. He is completely helpless. When I had moments of lucidity, I thought it was all over. I couldn't move my legs. It was so weird. I couldn't move my legs. I thought, right, it's all over. Overridingly, I just wanted to say goodbye to my missus. And that was about it.
I remember waking up every now and again and Matt was always there and I'd wake up in a blind panic and he's thinking, "Oh no, he's gone." "Oh no, what am I going to do?" And then I pass out again. And then I remember waking up sometimes and thinking, "I just want to go to sleep and leave it all now." I just gave up completely. So it was a balance of those two different things. It's definitely, definitely strange. Six hours dragged by.
It's now mid-afternoon on July the 21st. Thick grey mist chokes the summit. Distant peals of thunder roll through the valley. The storm is getting worse and there's still no sign of the rescue team. Sometimes I'd want him to go and leave me, I've had enough, but most of the time I'd wake up panicking, thinking I'm on my own, I've got to try and get my arse down, but my legs ain't moving. With each passing minute, a grim conclusion comes more into focus, that for Matt to live,
It could mean leaving Dan behind to die. What Dan doesn't know is that even as the rescue team struggle up the mountain, they're still in intermittent phone contact with Matt, and they're telling him exactly the same thing. It's around 6:00 PM. Dan shivers beneath his thermal blanket. His head rests on the snow. He's still only distantly aware of the howling wind and the gray sheets of snow tumbling relentlessly from the skies. But gradually, he becomes aware of another sound, a voice.
Several voices. I remember hearing shouting in my hole. And again, it was surreal. It was in the background above the wind. And then Matt talking to the guy who was the head of the rescue team, a guy called Fred. And I remember them talking, discussing. And then the next thing I know, I'm being sort of maneuvered. Dan feels strong arms lifting him from the snow hole. He doesn't have the mental capacity to feel any relief.
He blinks up into the faces of the burly rescuers who strap an oxygen mask over his mouth. They also give him a dose of steroids. Slowly, Dan feels the energy returning to his limbs, but still he can't stand up. After about half hour of the oxygen and the steroids, I remember thinking, I think I can move my legs and then try to get up and then being told to lie back down. Obviously,
They would try to give me the best chance to recover properly before I could move. Dan's lucidity is returning too. He understands that the rescue team can't stretch him down the mountain. It would be too difficult, too treacherous in this weather. And a helicopter certainly can't come into land. As he gathers his strength, Dan realizes there's a heated discussion going on between the rescuers and Matt. They were going to have to literally run away
Matt is clearly agitated. He shakes his head as one of the guys points at his watch.
It didn't even enter his head that he was going to leave me. He was going to be dead as well, if I'm being honest. If he'd have stayed there with me, he was going to die. The only way he was going to leave me is if they physically forced him. Dan doesn't need it spelled out. It's on him, and it's now or never. He grits his teeth and summons his last reserves of strength.
There must have been an instinct deep down. There must have been something driving me, but there's nothing that I can consciously put my finger on that I was thinking, right, I've got to get out of this. I've got to get out of this. I'd already mentally kissed myself goodbye almost. Anything else was going to be a bonus, I thought. Let me try and walk. I mean, the miracle was that the strength flooded back to my legs and then it happened so quick they decided, right,
get yourself up. I remember getting up and then helping me over the ridge and then they tied me to two other guys. And literally they ran me and Matt down to a place called the Vallow Shelter, which was over the top of the summit of Mont Blanc and down. And this was in a full storm. I remember the wind was horrendous.
I was pretty much a passenger. I kept falling over. Matt said all he could hear was "Alle Matt, Alle Dan, Alle Matt, Alle Dan". They were dragging us, dragging us, dragging us. At this altitude, they're literally in the heart of the storm. Lightning rips through the sky, striking the ice just meters above them.
These guys are so well trained, you know, they're amazing, the PGHM, they're an unbelievable outfit and literally they were moving like I couldn't believe. I thought I'm going to pass out again in a minute. The speed we moved up and over the top of Mont Blanc and down to the Vallow Hut. Two dizzying hours later, the climbers stumble through the door of the emergency shelter, but there's no time to relax.
They need to regulate Dan's blood oxygen levels. If they don't stabilize him soon, his heart could stop. The hut is equipped for the task, with its own bariatric chamber for exactly the scenario. But there's a problem. It's broken. And there they put me in a bariatric chamber, and I'm starting to become more lucid now because I'm warm.
I remember the balearic chamber, this plastic balearic chamber had a crack in it. It had a crack in it and they were trying to fix this crack with duct tape. More bad news. They won't be able to stabilize Dan's blood oxygen here. They need to descend to a lower altitude. Now, just when they thought they were safe, they must venture back out into the storm.
We were so disappointed because we thought that was all, it was all over, it was nice and warm, just leave us alone, we'll walk down and they weren't having it. So they grabbed us again and again, we went on another speed march down this mountain and this time there was lightning just all around us and the storm was horrendous. I can't emphasize the brutality of the wind, it just went straight through you. An hour later, they crashed through the door of another lower altitude hut.
Finally, Dan and Matt are bundled up in woolen blankets. They're rehydrated with essential fluids. Gradually, the storm fades in the background. The following day, July the 22nd, marks five days since they began their ascent. Dan and Matt are taken down to the hospital at Chamonix.
I had severe dehydration. They said my kidneys were on the point of failure. They gave me a drip and they said I was concussed as well and altitude sickness. So it was a combination of all three of those things that I think caused me to shut down on the summit. As he and Matt recuperate, Dan reflects on the incredible courage and skill of the mountain rescue team.
He learns that their retrieval from Mont Blanc was the highest altitude rescue operation ever recorded by the PGHM. Obviously it was a really high risk operation. I owe these guys my life and Matt.
It was a totally high risk operation, but they were so stoked. And, you know, because of my work, you know, I can understand the feeling when you've done a job like that and it's gone really, really well. You get a high that, you know, it's almost the same kind of high that when you do something like a serious alpine climb that you didn't think you could ever do. It's a feeling that you can't really replicate or I've not been able to replicate anywhere. And I figured that that's what these guys were feeling because when they got us down there,
They were high-fiving, they were so stoked and I felt stoked for them because I was so glad that not only had they got me down alive and Matt down alive but no one else got hurt. Do you know what I mean? He also learns quite how close he came to dying on the mountain. In the rapid descent, they had to leave Dan's backpack on the summit. Once the storm has receded, the PGHM offered to retrieve it. It's been struck by lightning and reduced to a pile of ashes. They were on the point of leaving me
If I hadn't have walked at that minute, I'd have been left there on my own. They dug a hole, tried to make me feel comfortable and they were going to leave me on the mountain. They were going to get Matt out and that was it. I was going to stay there, unconscious, and then the lightning would have obliterated me without a shadow of a doubt and I'd have died of exposure anyway. Of the myriad factors that helped Dan to survive, he pinpoints one, the sheer resolve of his climbing partner, Matt.
Matt's unique, right, because he was told to leave me, right? And if the roles were reversed, I've got to be honest, if someone's telling me, "You've got to go," I don't know. I'd like to think I would never have left him, but I can't prove that, whereas Matt absolutely has proved it because he didn't leave me. The man is so staunch, it's unbelievable. He deserves the praise that I'm giving him because it's not enough as far as I'm concerned.
As for my attitude, I don't think I've changed at all. I don't think it's added to it or taken anything away. I still want to finish the rest of the North Faces even at these advanced years. So, yeah, my attitude hasn't changed. I still think, you know, you've got to go out and get hold of life. In the next episode, we meet Amanda Ella. She's a yoga instructor based in Hawaii, pursuing a lifestyle that's good for the soul.
But one day, a trip into a local forest reserve takes a turn for the worse. What was intended as a quick blast of nature will become a two-week torment. Penned in by the dense foliage, Amanda will be pushed to her physical and mental limits. That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Hear Amanda's story right now without waiting a week by subscribing to Noisa Plus.
