Legs stuck in quicksand free#

Quicksand is not normally a problem at Zion National Park, but an unusually wet winter contributed to weather conditions that created the quicksand, Baltrus said. Put a straw into the glass so its touching the bottom, and fill the whole thing up with sand. You can do a small experiment at home to see how deadly this kind of sand is, and all you need is a tall glass, a drinking straw and some sand. “If it wasn’t for them and Jessica, I’d be dead for sure,” Osmun said. Dry quicksand is almost impossible to escape as its not the same thing as what is defined by quicksand. He was taken to a hospital and was later released, saying he felt very lucky that all he suffered was a swollen leg. READ MORE: Penticton victim in Kamloops shooting may be a case of mistaken identity Osmun stayed in a sleeping bag on top of a mat next to a fire until Sunday afternoon, when the helicopter made it to the site. He was suffering from hypothermia and rescue workers needed to airlift him out on a helicopter but it was snowing so they all had to spend the night at the site.

Legs stuck in quicksand free#

Rescue workers found her suffering from hypothermia, park officials said in a statement.Īfter rescue workers found Osmun, it took them two hours to get his leg free from the quicksand. McNeill said she felt like she was going to faint when she finally spoke with dispatchers. It took her three hours to reach a location with cellphone service so she could call 911. “I kept telling myself: ‘He would do it for me,’” McNeill said. She left him with warm clothes and decided the fastest way to get help would be to swim down the river, which was waist-deep with frigid waters, rather than taking a trail. With no cellphone service in the remote area, they decided McNeill would have to go for help. She tried to pry his leg out with a stick, but realized that effort would not work. The trouble for Osmun and McNeill began about four hours into the couple’s hike on a popular route called “The Subway” in the southern Utah park. “When water cannot escape, it creates a liquefied soil that cannot support weight and creates suction,” Baltrus said. After freeing your limbs, how do you get out of the quicksand Sometimes, when the quicksand becomes thicker and more solid, you can simply walk out. Osmun had stepped into a small hole filled with it, Baltrus said. Quicksand can form in saturated loose sand and standing water - the combination found on the river bed trail Osmun and McNeill were hiking, said Aly Baltrus, Zion National Park spokeswoman. man survives heart attack thanks to Facebook “And then toward the end I thought I wasn’t going to make it.” “I thought for sure I would lose my leg,” Osmun said. Ryan Osmun, 34, of Mesa, Arizona, told NBC’s “Today” show that he hallucinated at one point while waiting several hours alone after his girlfriend Jessika McNeill left him last Saturday to get help. A man who was stranded for hours in frigid weather with his leg sunk up to the knee in quicksand at a creek in Utah’s Zion National Park said Tuesday that he feared he would lose his leg and might die because the quicksand’s water was so cold.