On Wednesday, November 1, 1995, an 85-foot tug struck a rocky shoal about 10 miles south of Nain, Labrador. The Sea Alert sank within 10-12 minutes. The captain and two other crewmembers were lost with the vessel. The engineer, 30-year old Dave Barnes made it off the boat, but his journey to survival defies logic and some would say also defies medical science. This is the continuation of Survivor Extreme.
After two agonizing hours swimming and paddling a wooden crate-like raft through minus two-degree water in the Labrador Sea, Dave could see that he was finally drawing near a beach somewhere on the northern Labrador coastline.
However, making the landing was not a simple matter of pushing the raft to the beach and stepping to the land — far from it.
He was brought to a standstill by “young” (newly frozen) ice about 25-30 feet from the shoreline. Young ice is hard and looks more like thick glass than older white and non-transparent ice. It is also extremely difficult to smash through because it also cuts like glass.
Its transparency can be deceiving when looking down through to the ocean beneath. After breaking through several feet, Dave looked down and it looked as if the water was only two or three feet deep — or so he thought.
He managed to drag himself onto the ice with the intent of standing on the bottom and walking the remaining distance. As he attempted to stand, the ice broke and Dave went down — way down. What he thought was shallow water was in fact much deeper and he suddenly found himself dragged far below the surface by the weight of his soaked clothing.
“I was down there looking up and I could see the ice I just went through. I thought, ‘oh my God,’ what have I done? That nearly finished me — I almost died down there.”
After what seemed like an eternity, Dave finally surfaced and thrashed his way through the last 12-14 feet of broken ice to the beach and slowly crawled onto the rocky shoreline.
Exhausted, Dave could barely move.
There was a foot of snow on the ground, but after two hours in freezing water, the snow didn’t feel cold.
Lying on the snow-covered ground, Dave desperately needed rest, but he knew that he couldn’t let himself sleep because he would die of hypothermia.
Keeping track of time in Dave’s condition was, at best, guesswork, but he figures it was about a half hour after he crawled on the beach when he heard people talking. He could hear voices, but he couldn’t distinguish what they were saying because the drone of engines from search boats congregated in the area muffled their speech.
Dave didn’t know whether Scott managed to send a mayday because everything happened so quickly, but he figured the emergency beacon locator (EPIRB) activated, sending the location of Jenks Rocks.
He knew that searchers would calculate where possible survivors might have made shore, based on sea currents and wind directions, along with the trajectory of floating debris from the Sea Alert. He also knew that some of the searchers had good local knowledge of the area.
Three vessels were idling just off from the shoreline while men in small boats went ashore to search for survivors from the Sea Alert. Dave could easily see the boats in the moonlight. He could also see flashlights and hear men talking as they walked along the shoreline coming towards him.
“I could see them and hear them, so I sat up and started shouting and yelling but I was upwind and my voice was blowing in the opposite direction,” Dave says.
Dave watched helplessly, too weakened to stand, as the two flashlights came closer and then suddenly he saw the lights turn and go away from him again.
His heart sank.
Watching the two flashlights go farther away, Dave knew his chance of rescue had ended. At about that time, he felt his body starting to feel warm and almost comfortable. All he needed was a nap to restore energy, but he knew that was bad news. He knew he wouldn’t wake so rather than give up and lie down to die, the realization that help was no longer likely spurred Dave to develop a determined attitude and he prepared to walk to Ten Mile Bay.
He remembered from being there that morning there was a cabin where he could take shelter. Ten Mile Bay was about one and half miles away and even under normal circumstances getting there would be challenging, even on a summer day because Dave was on the south side of a peninsula and to get to the cabin he had to climb a mountain and down the other side.
Already exhausted, hypothermic and hungry, the thought of climbing a mountain in bare feet in a foot of snow, in the dark and wearing frozen clothing might have been daunting to most people, but Dave Barnes was not “most” people.
Married and the father of a 12-year year old son, Dave was determined to survive and there was no time to waste.
As he tried to stand, he stumbled and fell. He tried again but the same thing happened. Eventually he managed to stand long enough to make a few steps and this time he noticed something was wrong with his feet.
At first, he thought rocks had frozen to his socks in the same location of each foot — just behind his big toes. Removing his socks, instead of seeing rocks he realized his feet were frozen in the places he thought rocks had stuck. It took a minute to digest this new information, but rather than becoming disheartened, Dave saw opportunity. He noticed he could not feel pain where his feet were frozen, so he wondered what would happen if he could freeze the entire area of both feet? He would not feel any pain, so would he be able to walk without falling? It was worth a try because, with half-frozen feet, he stumbled, aimlessly at times. But would he make it over the mountain to Ten Mile Bay in that condition? There was only one way to find out.
As he stumbled to the shoreline, he also knew that the night air had become considerably colder after the sun had gone down and the minus 15°C temperature should hasten his quest for frozen feet.
Standing on the young ice that he had beaten his way through earlier was no summer afternoon stroll in the park as Dave waited for his feet to totally freeze, occasionally taking a few steps on the ice to see if his theory was correct.
It worked.
Each time he tried walking, he was getting more comfortable and was able to make additional steps before falling. Several minutes later, he had no feeling at all in either foot. They were completely frozen and he could walk without falling.
It was time to begin hiking along the shoreline first and then prepare for the long climb up the mountain.
Join us next month for Part IV of Survivor Extreme.
