Buried Alive in the Australian Outback

Boxes were all filled with gifts big and small. But sharing pure love is the greatest gift of all. Stay cozy, my people. And have a boss year. Get into the holiday spirit with Boss in our ultimate gifting edit. Visit your nearest store or explore our curated selection online at boss.com.

Hey everyone, welcome back to National Park After Dark. Thank you for joining us this week. We hope that you had a great weekend. We're doing this Monday's episode a little bit differently. This episode that we have coming out today is an episode that has already been launched on Patreon. We did it back in December. So if you are a Patreon member, you may have heard this one before.

And the reason for that is if you are friends with us on Facebook or Instagram, then you may have seen that we made a post. And last week, we experienced a very, very devastating loss. We lost a huge member of our... PAD family, Danielle's partner Ian, very, very unexpectedly passed away last week.

And while we are navigating through this very heartbreaking and very dark time, the podcast is going to be taking a back seat for the next few weeks. We do have our People of the Parks episode with Rolf Peterson that will be coming out next Monday. after that please be patient and understanding while we are just navigating through this very very difficult time we have seen all of the love that you've been sending and on behalf of danielle

I just want to say that she has seen your messages, she feels your love, and she really, really appreciates all of you. For everyone that knew Ian, he was just such a light in this world. He is the artist behind the NPAD music to our intro and to our outro. So every single time that you have listened to our podcast for the past year and you listen to our intro, you've been listening to Ian and a part of his heart that he is. put into this show. Because Ian departed so unexpectedly,

He has medical costs that he has left his family with and end-of-life expenses, so Danielle has put together a GoFundMe. I put the link into our episode description. If you're able to donate, anything is appreciated. When you listen to our intro music today, Ian had worked so hard on please take a minute to stop and think about him to remember him to honor him and please send lots of love and prayers his way and send lots of love and prayers to Danielle and to all of his family and loved ones

Hey, everybody. Welcome to National Park After Dark. This is the man behind our intro right here. Don't duck out. Just yeah. This is Ian. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Jazz clap. That was great. Thank you. What is the scariest situation that you can think of that you could find yourself stuck in? Does it involve the law? Does it involve family? Does it involve dying?

or the possibility of it. Ricky McGee was out on a trip across the outback of Australia to start a new life, start a new job opportunity, and get away from the rough past that he had. And along his trip, he ran into something he never expected. And he woke up buried alive. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Here we are another month. We're excited to be here. We're excited for another month. We have a really fun story today. Okay.

Well, I'm excited to hear this story today because Cassie's jumping on the Australia train. I am. I am. You inspired me with your story to visit Australia. And it's a survival story? Yes. So... It is. It is a survival story. Patreons, you all voted on a survival story. So I didn't actually mean to go to Australia, but I was researching a lot of this. I was basically, I just Googled.

survival stories in national parks. And a ton of articles come up. And of course, a lot of them are ones that we've all heard of and whatnot. But I came across this one article and it said something along the lines of three survival stories you're never going to believe. Like, okay, let's see these. So I read the first two and I'm like, oh yeah, they're interesting. And then I read the last one.

And it's in Australia, which you just covered. And the story is wild. It's insane. So I had to, the article I found was... like two paragraphs. But when I did more research, there's a huge story with it. So I wanted to tell that one today. All right, I'm ready.

So we are going back to Australia. We're kind of heading a little bit all over the place. We're not so much all in national parks, but we're really... in the outdoors and around them. So I just want to describe the area a little bit before we go into the story. So we're heading to the outback of Australia, which is a vast plain of uninhabitable land. It's a very sparsely populated area that extends from northern to southern Australia. It's largely desert and semi-arid climate.

But there's also, on the other spectrum of that, there's also this monsoonal tropical area, which is also not great for living either.

And the outback of Australia is actually recognized globally as one of the largest remaining intact natural areas on the planet. That makes sense, I would think. I mean... if it's uninhabitable for humans long term i mean i'm sure there was indigenous cultures there but obviously they didn't have anything permanent right i think they were nomadic or something like it's just too dry there and

sparse well it's funny because this climate is actually it can get very very wet there but it's so hot during certain months that you can't stay there long term and there is a big native history on the aboriginals have a really long history of inhabiting that area as well. But as far as like any buildings, cities, homes, anything like that, there's absolutely nothing here. Can you just imagine that much land?

With nothing. It's wild. And Australia's huge too. Part of the desert that we're going to here, it's called the Tanimi Desert. And it's the size of Italy, Switzerland, and Germany combined. Just this one desert that's just part of the outback? Yep. Wow. It's huge. I shouldn't be surprised after learning about the dingo fence. It's like this fence that's thousands of miles long, just going through nothing. I shouldn't be surprised.

just coming from a place that does not have that big of area that's uninhabited it's just it's hard to fathom yeah it's a it's a very um desolate and the outback actually attracts people from around the world to come visit it So within the boundaries of this extremely desolate area, there's a lot of beauty and ecological significance.

So much so that there's actually 25 national parks within the outback. Again, another statistic. Like, wow. Yeah. Just within the outback and there's that many? Holy moly. There's actually a lot of different endangered species, like different types of mice and things that are endangered that live within the outback, which is part of why it's a protected area as well. I'd be so scared to go to the outback. I'm scared of everything.

Yeah, you are. I actually it's funny because after I was researching this, I Facebook knows what you're doing online. And. I was looking and right away it comes up and it's like couple stuck in the outback car gets stuck out and they're trapped for four days or something like that. So I'm like, wow, it's definitely a thing where people get stuck out here.

I guarantee you that as soon as we're done with this, because my phone's sitting on my desk next to me, I'm going to be getting ads about the same thing or suggested stories because it's always listening. Always. Okay. Within the outback is the Boutine Highway, which runs for 581 kilometers or 361 miles. throughout the whole Outback. And while the name of it might fool you because it's named a highway, it's a very rural road, which at times turns to red dirt.

And this road also serves as a gateway to get to many of the national parks. And this highway is where our story is going to start today.

But before we head to the highway, we're going to talk about the man of this survival story. Ricky McGee was born in 1971 in Gippsland, Australia. He lived with his mother and his father on a small farm there and they were a really happy, normal, average family growing up. When Ricky got a little bit older, they decided to move to Melbourne.

After this move, though, the relationship between his parents got really difficult and it was a huge strain on their relationship. So his mother and father were fighting a lot and his dad actually ended up moving out and they got a divorce. His dad got really depressed. He just was having a really hard time with this move and change of things. Eventually, he ended up taking his own life, which was a huge... Yeah, which was a huge...

impact on Ricky. And after that, he really started working a lot of jobs trying to help support the family and do everything that he could. So he worked in a lot of different things. He worked as a carpet salesman, a prawn fisherman, an electrician. He ended up being a bouncer at a nightclub. And just to kind of get a visual of Ricky, he was a big... dude. I mean, he was this really large, intimidating guy. He was six foot three and he weighed about 230 pounds or like 105 kilograms.

Oh, wow. I mean, you have to be to be a bouncer. Yeah. And he was this big guy and he was also a little bit rough around the edges. You know, he partied, he smoked cigarettes. He wasn't afraid to get into a little confrontation here and there. And he actually, after working as a bouncer, he ended up working as a bounty hunter before moving from Melbourne. to Perth, Australia. So he ended up moving after that job as a bounty hunter for a little while. And then while he was in

he ended up getting into a bar fight and he was arrested. And then he was also charged with drug possession, which landed him in prison for a few years. So kind of a rough transition from childhood to adulthood, it seems like. Yeah, it sounds like he was kind of experimenting with drugs, and he was a little bit angry maybe, and he's a big guy.

Yeah, he just not not having it easy. So when he gets out of prison, he ends up moving to Queensland, Australia. So in 2006, when he was 35 years old and living in Queensland. Ricky was offered a job in Port Hedland, which was in Western Australia, and he accepted this. Part of accepting this new job meant that Ricky was moving over 5,000 kilometers or 3,000 miles away. So he was essentially driving the entire northern route across the country. If you can picture it, he's going...

from like the north right side of Australia to the northern left side of Australia. Just clear across the country. Yeah, exactly. And this trip was going to take him about 55 hours of driving. And he had it planned for over several days to get there. Boxes were all filled with gifts big and small. But sharing pure love is the greatest gift of all. Stay cozy, my people. And have a boss year.

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their business. Sorry, I just get so emotional talking about saving folks money. Not this onion I'm chopping? It's just so beautiful. Oh, yeah, nice onion. Get a commercial auto insurance quote today at Geico.com and see how much you could save. Get more with Geico. So he accepted this job. He packed up his 2001 Mitsubishi Challenger with all of his belongings. He even put a little refrigerator in his back seat so it was close at hand while he was driving.

and food and whatever he wanted. So he packed up all his stuff and set out for this drive. And really the only way to get to his destination was along the Boutine Highway. which drove almost completely through the desert land. So he's driving straight into the outback of Australia. The next few days, he would be in the center of the Tanimi Desert.

This desert is 71,235 square miles and is one of the most isolated and arid locations on the entire planet. While the area itself gets a lot of rain with over 400 millimeters of rain, fall each year, it experiences these sweltering summers where temperatures regularly stay at about 100 degrees Fahrenheit or 38 degrees Celsius. It's too much. Way too much. Yeah, it's so hot. And you're in the desert, you know, there's no shade. There's... It's relentless.

Yeah. So Ricky set out and he had been driving for about several hours when he saw a car pulled over far ahead. And as he got closer, he saw that there were three men standing outside of it. In the hot sun, they were sweating. and they really looked like they were stuck. So Ricky stopped his car in the middle of the road and rolled down his window. He asked the men if they were okay and if they were having car issues. They responded by telling him that they had run out of gas and were stuck.

Being stuck in this desert in these hot temperatures with no water could very, very easily become a fatal situation. And while Ricky had no room for all the men in his car as it was filled with all of his belongings, His passenger seat was still open. So he offered to give one of the men a ride to go get gas for their car and then bring them back. And the three men were super grateful. They were really friendly and they picked one of...

them to go and they hopped in the car and the others waited. So when the man hopped in the car with Ricky, he offered him a drink. Now Ricky was like, you look hot, you look thirsty. I'm standing out in the sun. Here, I'm drinking this. You can have some. So they finished that drink and his passenger offered to grab him another one out of the fridge. And normally Ricky wasn't someone to let others grab drinks for him. You know, he was a bouncer in a club. He saw things that would happen, but...

He was driving. This man was really friendly. He had his eyes on the road. He's like, yeah, sure. That'd be great. You know, he's right next to this guy. So he hands him the drink, opens it for him, hands it to him. And Ricky takes a few sips out of his drink. and continues talking to the guy, you know, just asking small little chit-chatty questions. And then it was only seconds, maybe minutes, before he could feel his eyelids start to become heavy.

Oh, shit. Ricky's vision started to blur and his thoughts were starting to become disoriented. I've been drugged. He panicked inside. feeling himself getting closer and closer to passing out. Then this stranger in his car grabbed a hold of the wheel and in an effort to stop him, Ricky grabbed it himself.

and jolted it in the opposite direction. A struggle ensued between the two of them, and the car careered off the road. Ricky passed out. When his eyes began to open again, the sun was starting to set. He had missed hours of time. Where am I? What happened? Thoughts scrambled through his mind. Confused and dazed, he looked around.

The first thing he immediately noticed was that he was no longer in the driver's seat, but the passenger seat. There were voices of several men nearby. It sounded like they were rummaging through the trunk of his vehicle. Only half conscious and with no idea where he was, Ricky slid over the center console and into the driver's seat and began to take off. His tires pulled out hard and spun slightly in the desert dirt.

A loud thud sounded on the back of his car. Ricky looked in the mirror, and a man was hanging on to the back of his car and swinging at the window. He swerved and pressed the gas in an attempt to get him off. Glass shattered. This strange man had smashed through his back windshield. he was hit in the face with brunt force. Holding one arm up to defend himself from another punch and the other to try and keep the car on the road, he swerved again. This time the car veered off the road,

his belongings jumping all around the car as they hit rocks and brush, and then the car landed at the bottom of a ravine. Ricky pressed the gas, but the tires only spun. And then... He passed out again. He drifted in and out of consciousness for the next several hours. He could hear the men rummaging through his things and pulling apart all of his belongings.

When he finally woke up again, he was surrounded by four men. He realized now exactly what was happening to him. In remote areas like this, people paid others to rob cars for passports and for money. Ricky didn't care about any of that anymore. He just felt so thirsty. Take my car. I don't care. Just give me some water. Ricky pleaded with the men, but with no avail, and he passed out again. It takes a lot of balls for somebody to, I mean, I guess there is four.

them yeah there's four of them but he's a big guy too now i'm like putting it together in my mind because obviously it was a con but i'm like wait but the car was broken down how did they get to him it's like well no Kidding. So the car must have obviously been following them the whole time and then caught up with them. And now there's.

That's how there's four of them now. I don't actually know if he knows how that happened because he was passed out. So I don't know if the way I was picturing it was that he was in the passenger seat. All of the guys, he was back where all the guys were. And I don't know if they drove to him or if they took the car back. Because he's so in and out of it. Like, he doesn't know. He doesn't know these details. That's a good point.

The next time when he woke up again, it was dark and something heavy was on top of him. He took a deep breath in and when he did, he felt his throat choke with sand.

he could hear the sounds of dogs whining and whimpering and the sounds of paws digging completely dark he felt around him and as he did he realized he was wrapped inside a tarp and covered in dirt there was more digging and pawing noises wild dogs of the australian outback were trying to get to his body ricky started yelling and flailing he heard the noises of the dingoes taking off scared off by his yells undoubtedly these dingoes thought that they were digging up a dead corpse

Oh, my God. That is number one. You're you're waking up in like your worst nightmare being buried alive. Thankfully, he wasn't. truly, truly buried alive to the point that he couldn't get out. But then there's already scavengers ready to eat you. Like, holy shit. Yeah. And I saw an article where he was just talking about his experience. And he said, he's like, I don't know if I ever would have woken up if I hadn't.

been woken up by those dingoes you know he was still drugged there wasn't a lot of air under there you know he's like i might have just slept until i died and stopped breathing wow interesting So with all his strength, he was able to lift the tarp and dirt off of himself, and he realized at that point that he had been buried alive in a shallow grave. His shoes were missing. The only clothes he had on were his shorts and a t-shirt.

and no water the first thing that he needed to do was try and figure out where he was it was so desolate and there were no signs of anybody looking around he saw a small hill in the distance and decided that if he could get to that then maybe he'd be able to see a road or maybe even his car so he slowly picked himself up his mouth dry and lined with small bits of sands

His head was throbbing and it felt like the worst hangover of his life. Pretty much. You know, he was just punched in the face. He got into two car accidents. He was drugged. He's been through it. He's already been through it. And now he's barefoot. So with each step, he was painfully aware of the hot ground and the tough rocks that were on his bare feet.

When he finally made it to the top of the hill, he looked around, and it was a devastating sight. Surrounding him for miles and miles in every single direction was just desert. Rocks and sand, small brush, no trees, no shade, no roads anywhere in sight. The only thing that he could think to do at this point was to walk. So he did. He walked for hours and hours under the scorching sun, and he was desperate for water at this point. On this particular day...

It was 100 degrees Fahrenheit, just 38 degrees Celsius. He was getting really desperate for any type of water, and he decided that he was going to try and drink his own urine. Right off the bat. No good. Just for future reference, if you're ever in a situation like this, drinking your own urine is actually very, very bad for you. We talked about this in another one, I think. Yeah, I don't remember which episode we talked about it in, but we did. It can send you into like kidney failure.

And it actually, because your urine is taking out a lot of the salts and all your waste in your body, it's taking out of. So then you're drinking it and you're putting it back in your body. And now your body that doesn't have any. hydration has to try and refilter all of that stuff out again. And it's really hard on your kidneys and you can go into kidney failure. So

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So he did. He drank his own urine, but he was very hopeful that he was going to find rain. So he was here in January 2006. which was the very end of wet season in the outback, which meant that even though rain was getting rarer and rarer every day, it was possible he could find a body of water and it was possible that it could rain.

Also essentially in the outback during the wet season, there will be watering holes. There will be rivers, big bodies of water that completely dry up during the dry season. So the fact that he's at the end. of wet season means that there's hope that he might actually find some water that night after walking several miles he camped out under the stars he made a makeshift shelter

out of some branches and some brush that he found. And he went without water at all that day. It wasn't until two days after he woke up in that ditch that he finally found a body of water. And it was an amazing sight. He found a flowing river. He ran as quickly as he could down to the embankment and dove right in, drinking and cooling himself off. Now that he had found a water source, he didn't want to leave it. And he thought, water?

can lead to civilization. So Ricky lay back in the water and decided to let the current bring him downstream. So he cooled off and floated and drank water and just laid in the river for miles. He floated for hours. He covered a lot more ground this way. a lot faster and not to mention this was a lot easier on his feet that were getting really beat up by these this brush and hard rocks and hard areas so to float down this river was really relieving for his feet.

I have a quick question, which may not even come into play, and I don't even know if you know for sure, but aren't there alligators and crocodiles in Australian rivers? I'm not sure. That's a good question. I'm going to look it up because this water is temporary. It's not a full-time water source. As soon as the dry season comes, it soaks up and there's literally no water anywhere. Okay, so it'll just be a dry bed.

Oh, you know, it does say. Yeah, it says Australian saltwater crocodiles are by far the most dangerous animals in Australia. They are huge, aggressive, territorial.

And plentiful across the north of the Australian outback. Yeah, see? See? Yeah. It's so scary. And he's just like, I'm going to float for miles and just hope nothing happens to me. Well, it's funny because a lot of the... stuff he does and again this is a survival story but a lot of the stuff he does are not things that you would think would help you with survival at all and we'll like talk about it okay he manages um

Eventually. And you can tell by a lot of his decision making, he has no experience. surviving off the land. Okay, so there are confirmed predators. According to Google, it says there are alligators in the Northern Territory, which is where he is. Okay.

So he was in this river and he ended up floating 6 kilometers, 3.5 miles before he saw a road. And he jumped out of the water and he began walking along it. And after a little while of walking, he came across a massive cattle ranch. Ricky had believed from the moment he woke up in that ditch that he was going to be saved. And every morning he woke up and thought, today's the day I'm going to...

I'm going to be found. It's fine. But as he approached the cattle ranch, he saw that it was completely empty. It was the wet season after all. And during the wet season, the dirt roads would get so bad that people would get stuck on them for days. So many people didn't even bother coming out until it was over. And that included any rangers on the farm. It sounded like there were no cows or anything here either. Yeah, he probably just saw fencing.

and realized that it was a cattle ranch, but no activity. And this farm covered over 2,000 kilometers, which is 1,200 miles. So even if there was someone there... There was no telling if he was actually going to find them or see them. And Ricky was exhausted at this point. And here on the cattle farm, he found a small tree that provided some shade. And he decided he would sit here and rest. He was so tired and so weak. During this walk, he had started passing out from dehydration.

And he was just really stumbling along and having a really hard time maneuvering himself. And over the next few days, he felt himself getting weaker and weaker. He passed out on and off from lack of energy and food. He had been lost for six days at this point and had had no food at all. He sat under this tree dreaming.

of all the things that he would eat if he could and just then as he was dreaming of these things a small lizard scurried by. He quickly grabbed a rock and smashed it over the head. killing it instantly. He then took the lizard and put it out into the sun to dry it out and left it there for several hours. When it finally dried out, he peeled as much skin as he could off of him and ate it.

He wasn't able to stay at the ranch long because there weren't any water sources there. So he had to make the choice to begin walking again. The rocks and thick brush continued to cut his feet and he was in incredible pain. He walked for... twenty-five more kilometers before he found the next watering hole he dug himself a hole in the side of the embankment and decided to stay there for a few days as his feet were too injured to continue so he basically dug a little hole in the side

where he could sleep in and was just like, I found water. I'm going to stay here. So over the next few days, he started experimenting with what he could eat. And he started experimenting with bugs. He would try and eat any bugs that he could find. He would eat grasshoppers, caterpillars. He even tried cockroaches, which I don't think have any nutritional value, but he tried it.

Well, he's eating something. It seems like it would maybe provide a calorie or two. Yeah. He also started feeding off of the frogs and leeches that lived inside the watering hole that he found. The leech thing. It's disgusting. It's the texture. It's like the slurp. It's like slurping down and like I don't do oysters or like clams or anything like it's like that slippery. Oh, God. So nasty.

You know, I thought that the texture was like a really bad part of it, but I was watching his interview and you know what he said was the worst part about eating a leech? What? was that he had to eat them really fast because if he didn't, they would start sucking on the inside of his mouth. Oh, my God. Ew. Oh, fuck. That is so gross. Like, if you don't eat it fast enough, they'll eat you. Oh, God, that is so nasty.

Yeah, and he said that it was chewy and tough and it tasted like raw, bloody meat. Oh, yeah, because you... All right, I'm thinking of, like, just taking it, like...

slurping it down in one but he's gnawing on it yeah you got to otherwise they're gonna start eating your insides until your acid like destroys them but yeah true yeah all right let's move on what else did he eat He was eating six to eight frogs per day to try and get calories. As the days were going by, he could see the weight just falling off of his body.

And as I said before, he was this big guy and he was shrinking and bones were coming out of places he had never seen before. You know, he was... His ribs were starting to show, his collarbone, his hips. All these bones were starting to protrude out of his body. For a while, he was keeping up high spirits. Every morning he would wake up and confidently say to himself, I'm going to be safe today. Today is the day I'm going to be reunited with my family. But as every day started to pass,

That thought went further and further to the back of his mind. And he thought of his friends and his family and just how he may never see them again. But this exact thought was also the thought that kept him going. and kept him trying to survive so he camped out at this watering hole for several weeks and each day he saw himself waste away even more after around the sixth week out there every day he would find a new bone sticking out of his body

He could count every bone in his body protruding out. Six weeks? Six weeks. Holy shit. For a second, I thought you said days. He was there for like six more days, but this is a different. He's there now a month and a half. Yep. Wow. It's there for a really long time.

So he was hanging out at this watering hole for a while, but he knew that he needed to leave. No one was coming there, there was no activity, nothing was around, and he needed to find some sort of civilization. He could tell he was dying. and he really needed help. So without knowing if he was ever going to find another place for water, he set out again. He walked for a really long time, and his legs occasionally gave out underneath him. His feet were torn apart at this point.

Every step was excruciatingly painful. As he was walking, he saw something. More water. Was it a mirage? He had no way to tell at this point. He was delirious, confused, dehydrated, and starving. He could no longer walk, but he was determined to find out. He crawled for over 500 meters, slowly dragging his body along the desert floor. When he arrived there, he had found a small dam within the body of water, and it wasn't far from a road.

but there was no one in sight there was no sign of anybody had been there this small dam had a small hole and it was covered by a metal sheet and when he looked inside it was the perfect amount of space for him to fit in and shelter away from the sun. Okay. So clearly man-made, clearly some sort of human activity had been there at one point. And if it's being upkept in things, you would think that someone would be by at some point. Yeah, exactly.

was a good spot for him to get away from the sun. So over the next few days, he continued his routine of finding frogs and leeches and drinking water within this new watering hole that he had found. And he was spending a lot of time sleeping now. and he would spend his time in his shelter, he could feel his body slowly dying. Every time he went to bed, he had no idea if he was going to wake up again. So he found two sticks, and he made them into a cross.

and he stuck them above his shelter. And he did this because if anyone came to the area, if he left a cross above it, they might find his grave. And that way, his family would have a body to bury. That's so sad. He faced another problem now as well. A pack of dingoes were hanging very closely around. They watched him as he looked for food and drank water, and it was as if they were sizing him up to see if he could be their next meal. He could hear them at night howling.

and they would circle the waterhole during the days. He was confident that they couldn't get to his body when he was sleeping because of how it was dug, but the howling was constant, and it was a reminder that they were around and they were waiting for him. This is the story of the one. As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast. It's why he partners with Grainger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs.

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Of being out in the desert. I'm sorry, 71? 71 days. 71? Holy crap. This is like insane. And I'm not trying to compare this because obviously it's like... total tragic situation he's found himself in. Obviously the events leading to how this all unfolded and then the time he's away and are out there and stuff. But I just kind of got a flash in my mind. Do you watch alone?

Yes. It's like when it says like day whatever and it's like two people remain or like three people remain. And it's the same thing. It's like the first... however many couple days to weeks, they're like, I have my routine. Things are going to be good. Like I'm going to get food today. They're peppy. They can do things for longer, like working on their shelter or traveling around. And then like as the days go on and on and their spirits get kind of down.

And they're so tired all the time. It's like, all I do is sleep because I'm not taking in enough calories and I'm weaker and weaker. I have all these bones protruding. Obviously it's a televised. They're never going to be at risk of dying and no one ever knowing, but it's kind of like the same progression.

of events of how your body deteriorates and your spirits decline and it's just crazy i can't believe it's 71 days it's wild yeah i'm pretty sure i'm not 100% sure, but I think I read somewhere that 71 days is the longest anyone has ever survived out in the desert before.

Well, because like you said, it's like, I know he dug a little bit of a shelter in that ravine before, and now he has this little bit of shelter, but still being exposed to such direct and intense sunlight in such a... arid and dry climate with what you say he just had a t-shirt and his shorts yeah that's it like that is just incredible that

a human can go through that and live. Well, another thing that he was doing too is he was actually, when he started eating insects and experimenting on these different things, he decided to experiment on plants. as well so he was eating all these different plants and he had no idea if he could eat them he was deciding if he could eat them or not based on what they tasted like so if they didn't taste good he would spit them out

But if they tasted fine, he would eat the plants. So he's just kind of... He's doing anything he can to survive, but he is getting so lucky because nothing he's ingesting is poisonous to the point where it's killing him yet. Yeah, I was just going to say that's such a roll of the dice. Like, oh, well, we'll see what happens.

What? You could just keel over or have intense... gastrointestinal issues which would lead to further dehydration which would oh my god he got lucky yeah someone's looking over him this whole time because he's getting so lucky left and right in terms of not being killed by half the stuff he's doing. It's his dad. Yeah. Aw. I didn't think of it like that, but yeah, maybe. Okay, so we're day 71. Still in that shelter thing. Damn.

situation. We're day 71 of being out in the desert and Ricky hears a car from his shelter. He jumps up as quickly as he can. climbs out of his little hole in the ground and races towards the road. This is the fastest he's moved in a while. He flags down this car. It was two farmhands. driving a Land Rover that had come to finally check out the farms. And now that wet season was pretty much over, he's been out here for 71 days, they were finally coming back out.

So he flags them down and when they get to him, they can't believe their eyes. He was a skeleton. He was the most emaciated person that these people had ever seen. They looked at him and they couldn't even believe that he was alive. Ricky, who was weighing 230 pounds, was now just down to 45 kilos. which is 99 pounds. What's his last name? McGee. It's M-E-G-E-E. Is there pictures? Yes, there's lots of photos of it, actually, but three.

And weighing under 100 pounds now. Oh my god. I'm looking at him right now on Google. He has a giant tattoo on his back. And his like... It looks like it's stretched over just a literal skeleton. Like it's a tattoo on skin that's just wrapped around a skeleton. He's literally skin and bones at this point.

He was so happy to see these two guys. He actually just kept touching them because he didn't believe they were real. You know, he's touching them like, are you really here? Are you really here to rescue me? And he's like, tears of joy. He is just so, so happy. He's finally been rescued. You know, he was ready to die. He made his own grave and he was just waiting. He was still trying to live, but he...

was facing the real fact that he was going to die soon. So the two men, of course, they load him up in their truck and they drive him to the closest hospital. And he ended up being there for three weeks recovering.

After he got found and word got out, he became... big in the news like everyone was referring to him as a human skeleton and that photo you just looked up was everywhere and i'll post that photo too on patreon so you can all see it but he's literally skin and bone so you can see every single part of his body he was he when he went into the hospital they had to put him on like this special diet to like slowly get him to be able to start eating again and

Which I can imagine would be really tough because, you know, you're going from eating absolutely nothing and then you get to the hospital and they're like, you're dreaming of like huge meals and they're like, sorry, you can't eat. Like, here's a liquid diet while we... get you back you know like i imagine that would be really hard like here's half of one smoothie a day yeah

And it's like, we're going to build you up. You can have a full smoothie tomorrow. I don't know if that's exactly what happened. But, you know, he was in the hospital for three weeks while they were doing that and getting him. And the funny. thing is is when he got to the hospital he was starving but they said that he was relatively well hydrated and that was because he was actively drinking so much water at the watering hole he was at

So that was a huge reason. And he says it in his interview. In the show notes, I'll attach the links to his interviews so you guys can watch it if you want. But in his interviews, he says, that's why I survived. You know, I drank so much water, so my organs were still hydrated. And he's like, and yeah, I was skin and bones, but I was getting something. So there were some type of calories going in there. So my organs didn't shut down.

Another question, I don't know if you know the answer to, but something that I would think, again, back to the water sources thing. Do you know if you ever got any like intestinal parasite? Because I think of like contaminated water and... the risks of drinking that. Obviously, he has no other choice. You are drinking it or you're dying. But I just wonder if he ever got any sort of issue from drinking a contaminated water source throughout his time there.

Yeah, it's funny that you asked that because the person who interviewed him also asked that question. If he had gotten sick off of the water and he said, no, I got really, really lucky. It had actually just recently rained a lot and it was all fresh water. pretty much that he was drinking. He is so lucky. I mean, so lucky. I don't know if we can really say he's lucky because look where he is. I mean, he was robbed and like beat up and drugged.

And in the desert for 71 days. So luck probably isn't the best word, but like also that's luck. He was fortunate in a very unlucky situation. Yes. That's what.

That's a good way to put it, I think. It's just because there are so many stories you read that they're survival stories and yet it winds up okay, but they run into all of these roadblocks. Like they either... get attacked by something they have some sort of really bad injury that's inhibiting their ability to move or they drink a contaminated water source and they're out for the count with like giardia or something it's like you know he's just kind of

lucking out at every corner and all these inner passes that could have been really, really bad. So it's very... it's a very different type of survival story, I think. Yeah. And I mean, he is barely skating by in this, you know, he is really lucky with his water source, but he's lost 130 pounds in weight. He, his feet are torn up. He can barely.

even walk at this point you know he he says in his interview sometimes he would pass out while he was walking and he would wake up literally cooking in the sun oh god Okay, I take it all back. I take it all back. So he certainly went through some stuff while he was out there, and he has this crazy story. And there were actually some people, and I didn't look super into this.

aspect of it but when he got back and told people his story it just seemed really unbelievable that the authorities didn't believe him What do you mean? He's a skeleton. Why? He just did that for fun? Yeah. And like he did this to himself. Yeah. They didn't believe that he was robbed and they didn't know why he was out in the desert for a little bit. But then he ends up.

writing a book and it's called left for dead and it's about his entire experience out in the desert and everything that he did and um i didn't i didn't personally read it but It has a lot of good reviews on it, and it is his firsthand account, so it's very cool. rinse fights stubborn odors in just one wash. When impossible odors get stuck in. That's the sound of James adding long-lasting gain scent boosters to his laundry this morning.

Several hours later, James sniffs the irresistible scent of gain on his shirt. Ah, gain. Several hours later, James has even caught the attention of his mother-in-law, and she never gives him attention. Ooh, you smell amazing, James. Oh, thanks, Mom. I love you, too. I never said that. Do you know if they ever found...

Those people responsible for- No, they never found his car or those people. Wow. It just kills me that there are people like that in the world that would be- absolutely fine with leaving someone for dead without even a bottle of water well i mean they buried him in a grave they're like yeah well to them he was already dead so i to get back to like that. They were just okay with doing that. And that is so insane for a passport or some money.

I know. If someone ever robbed me, be like, have it. You can have it. Please just, like, don't kill me. But he did say he tried to do that, though, right? Yeah, he did. They didn't care. It's a people to me. Makes you not want to pick up a hitchhiker or help people on the side of the road, which is really sad because I think most of the time people aren't going to be like that. But if you're in the outback, just be a little safe, I guess.

Maybe don't let anyone get in your car, like go get them gas and come back or I don't know. Yeah, I would never ever in a million years do that to anyone anywhere. Like you said, though, I would want to help. I'd be like, all right, well, if you truly need help, I will be back with something to help you and or other people. So I have backup. I'm not just going to be like, okay, sure, get in my car. No way. Yeah.

I haven't picked up hitchhikers or anything before, but I do live right off the long trail in Vermont. And recently... Al and I were out, I guess it was a few months ago, but we were out driving around and we stopped for one of the viewpoints. We weren't even hiking. And we came across some through hikers and started talking to them. And they said, oh, we're going into your town.

And Al and I kind of looked at each other like, do we want to offer them a place to stay? Like, do we? We don't know. Like, are they serial killers? You know, kind of. You did it, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah, we picked them up. And they're really nice. We're friends now. There were two of them. They came, hung out. Actually, after she ended up working, she finished the long trail. Then she worked.

up in Maine at a hostel and then she came back through to come visit me before she she's from Texas and went down there and then the guy that she was with they were just friends and he Went back to, he was from Ohio, and we still talk occasionally, and we're all friends now, and they were very, very cool people. Makes me so nervous.

That makes me so nervous. If Al wasn't with me, I wouldn't have said yes. Well, of course. But I also think, you know, on the other side of that, they had to be trusting of you. Like they're the ones entering an unknown space and into your home. Like they probably thought had some similar thoughts about you and Al. Like, you know, and thankfully it worked out for the best. But yeah, none of us were serial killers.

so right god no thank you i mean i've i'm not gonna publicly say this and more so because my mom listens but i've had a couple situations when I lived in Colorado that I made some poor decisions as far as extending trust when maybe I shouldn't have. And it did work out, but I will never, ever, ever do that again. Okay, well, you can't just say that and then not say what happened. So let's... Let's go. It's not public. It's just to all of our Patreon members. Okay. So hi, mom. Sorry.

I've learned my lesson. Nothing happened, but okay. Just to make it really quick. So there was one night that when I was working at the Wolf Center, me and my coworker... decided to go into Colorado Springs and to go out. And that's something we never really did because we worked so early in the morning. And had a very labor intensive job. So we go out down into the springs, of course, drink way too much. And we had my Jeep and we were in a parking garage. And we got into the Jeep.

And we're just kind of sitting there kind of like, oh, my God, it's so late. We're drunk. Like, what are we going to do? It's like two in the morning and we have to clock in at like seven. Oh, gosh. This guy comes up to my window and he knocks on it and I roll it down a little bit. And he was like, whatever you do, do not turn your Jeep on. Because we were just sitting in it like I hadn't turned it on.

And I was like, what? And he's like, there have been cops sitting there watching you guys for the last 25 minutes waiting to arrest you as soon as you turn on your vehicle. Wow. That was really nice of him to tell you. But, so this is where it gets bad. Okay. So I was like, wow, thank you. So of course we're like, wow, wow. Like our savior. Thank you. Well.

Yeah. Casey was kind of like down for the count. So it was basically just me like, wow, that's so nice. And we started talking to him. And essentially what ended up happening was he's like, you leave your car here. Come with me. I'll drive you to your house and I will drive one of you back tomorrow to pick up your car. One or both of you tomorrow to pick up your car. And we were like, well, shit, like we can't call out. Like, what are we going to do?

So we fucking went with him. So not only are we drunk, we're in a stranger's car and he's driving me now to my home where I live by myself across country with no family around. And now it is like three in the morning. So he's like, do you mind if I stay the night? Because I have to drive you tomorrow. Because where I lived from Colorado Springs was far, it was like 40 minutes away.

Like in the mountains. Yeah. So there was no like, I'm really nervous for this story now. This is scary. Yeah. So like I couldn't just Uber, you know, like it wasn't like we were in town. So he late, he literally. crashes on the floor and me and Casey are in my bed. And mind you, this is a renovated old postal office cabin. It's one room. One room. So you're all in the same room. All in the same room.

He like I set my alarm. It goes off a couple hours later and he did what he said and he brought us back and I got my car and we went right to the Wolf Center and I never heard from him again. Nothing ever weird ever happened. And he was like younger. He was around our age. He wasn't an old man or anything, but still like that is the.

one of the poorest decisions I've ever made in my life. Yes, but also he probably saved you from getting a DUI and he was actually like nice. So that worked out actually kind of well. It is a poor decision. It is a scary that could have gone like so many different directions. But it did work out okay and showed like a nice person. Because that was really nice of him to say that. Because if you had like been like, oh, it's kind of cold. I'm going to turn my car on.

Like you would have been in so much trouble. I know. But like looking back on it, he could have just driven us right into the mountains. No one would ever know what happened to us. You know, like. We are obviously intoxicated. We were young. We were like 24, 23. It just, yeah. Anyways, sorry, mom. I'm so sorry. Can we just not talk? Like, don't call me after this airs and talk about it. Like, I already know it's bad. Well, these are the takeaways from today's episode.

Don't get in cars as strangers or let strangers in your car. Right. Absolutely. And don't drink your pee. Yeah. There's a lot of takeaways here. Yeah. And don't eat. cockroaches, and if you do have to eat a leech, eat it fast. And chew. And chew it. Ew, I'm so glad I already ate because I kind of don't feel well.

I just can't believe that. That's such an incredible story. And I kind of want to read his book now just because I'm sure there's just so much to the story. It's 72, what? 71, 72 days worth of. surviving and experience and yeah and he talks more in depth of like each day in and out and everything that happened so yeah definitely awesome well thanks for sharing that yeah

Happy to go back to Australia since we just were there. But I know when you're like, is it too much to do another Australian episode? I'm like, absolutely not. We've been doing this for a year and we've never gone. So, oh, well. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. We'll see you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch your back. Bye. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week.

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