A Montana man says he’s lucky to be alive after badly breaking his legs and spending the next four days alone in the Idaho wilderness with little food or water.
John Sain, 50, has been venturing into the woods since he was 13 and knows his way around. But last week, on a bowhunting trip near McCall, his search for elk ended abruptly.
“I stepped up on a log, there were two logs, and my foot slipped in between them,” he explained to KTVB from a hospital bed. “My momentum went forward and it snapped the two bottom bones in my right leg, the tib and the fib in half.”
Miles from the trail in Salmon-Challis National Forest and with no cell service, Sain says he considered “just ending it right there”. He even wrote letters to family to say farewell.
But the emotion of writing those letters forced Sain to make a decision, according to the NBC report.
The immobilized hunter – armed with only a survival kit, a bit of food and a water purifier – grabbed sticks and ripped up cloth to create a splint. He then spent the next two and a half days dragging himself out of the woods and building fires at night to stay warm.
He was discovered on the fourth day of his adventure by a pair of motorcyclists who were able to call for help and is now recovering at a Boise hospital.
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