Stranded on a rock in the middle of a waterfall, Josh Reichert, 30, decided to walk across the water instead of waiting for help and was immediately swept away.
“It was a miracle I did live,” Reichert told Kiro7. “I should have died right then.”
According to Kiro7, Reichert fell 70 feet over three waterfalls at the Olympic National Park in Washington State.
In cellphone video captured by a fellow park visitor, Reichert’s wife can be heard screaming as he plummets down the waterfalls.
“He fell in front of my eyes,” Reichert’s wife, Katrin Kim, told Kiro7. “I think he’s dead. I just couldn’t think he’s going to be alive.”
Reichert shattered his feet and almost drowned during the horrifying incident.
Even after sustaining injuries to his legs, he was able to climb out of the river where emergency crews found him below a steep embankment.
The rescue took 9.5 hours after Olympic Mountain Rescue had to fashion a basket to carry Reichert up the embankment before wheeling him all the way to the trail’s entrance where the ambulance was waiting.