SR-22 Crash, with a twist

Gold Medal Olympic Wrestler Rulon Gardner Survives Plane Crash, Swims to
Safety in Cold Lake

From FOX NEWS...
Monday, February 26, 2007

SALT LAKE CITY ‹ Olympic wrestling champion Rulon Gardner lost a toe
to frostbite after being stranded in the wilderness, impaled himself
with an arrow and was involved in a serious motorcycle accident.

In his latest escape from death, he survived a plane crash over the
weekend into the aptly named Good Hope Bay on the Utah-Arizona border.

"I think I'm really lucky," Gardner told CNN on Monday, "after
everything I have been through."

Gardner and two Utah brothers were rescued by a fisherman Sunday after
swimming more than an hour in 44-degree water and spending the night
without shelter.

None suffered life-threatening injuries, authorities said.

"It takes only about 30 minutes for someone swimming in 44-degree water
to start suffering the effects of hypothermia, so the fact that they
swam in it for an hour, not to mention surviving the plane crash and the
night without fire or shelter, is pretty amazing," said Steven Luckesen,
a district ranger at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. "If these
guys were a cat with nine lives, they just used up three of them."

(Story continues below)

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Since delivering one of the great Olympic upsets at the 2000 Sydney
Games, the 35-year-old Gardner has had a history of harrowing escapes.

In 2002, he became stranded while snowmobiling in the Wyoming and lost a
toe. Then in 2004, he was struck by an automobile while riding a
motorcycle. Back in third grade, he punctured his abdomen with an arrow
at a class show-and-tell.

The lesson, Gardner said, is "hopefully teach people to be smarter about
the choices they make."

In his latest brush, Gardner was a passenger in a Cirrus SR 22 with
pilot Randy Brooks and brother Leslie. They were looking at a houseboat
from the air when the plane dipped into the water, Garfield County
public information officer Becki Bronson said.

"The plane went from 150 mph to none in about 2 seconds," Gardner told
CNN. "Within about a half a second is when we knew that things went from
a beautiful day, a beautiful afternoon, all the way to a pretty bad
situation."

Authorities were uncertain of the exact location of the crash and were
investigating the cause.

When he went into the water, Gardner said he quickly grabbed his coat.
He remembered how cold he'd gotten after getting lost on the snowmobile
five years ago.

That's when the Brooks brothers told him to drop everything.

"It's either your stuff or your life," Gardner recalled them saying. "I
was really struggling."

Gardner said he wasn't a good swimmer and was worried he'd be left alone
in the water.

"I said, 'Don't leave me. Come back and get me,"' he said. "They said,
'Hey, just relax, calm down. We're not leaving you. Get on your back,
and start doing basically backstroke."

Gardner said he didn't get too nervous about the water temperature. It
"wasn't really anything I thought about because we were safe. We had
just survived a plane wreck."

Once they reached the shore, Gardner said, there were other concerns. He
was wearing only a T-shirt and jeans, having kicked off his shoes to
swim, and there were limited supplies.

"We came together and we said, 'OK, let's try to dry our clothes out
before the sun goes down.'

"Nobody is going to see us before sunset because most of the boats had
already gone by. I said let's dry everything out," he said.

Gardner said they tried to build a small shelter out of the rocks. The
three men huddled through the night to keep warm.

Once they were rescued, Gardner and the brothers called a relative to
take them for medical attention.

"Miraculously, the three sustained no life-threatening injuries, mainly
suffering from hypothermia injuries to their feet," Garfield County
authorities said in a statement.

Gardner stunned the Olympics seven years ago when he earned the gold
medal in Greco-Roman wrestling by ending Alexander Karelin's 13-year
international winning streak. In 2004 in Athens, Gardner won the bronze
medal, and in wrestling tradition, left his shoes on the mat as a
symbolic way of announcing his retirement.

In 2004, Gardner was on a motorcycle and going to wrestling practice
when he crashed in Colorado Springs, Colo. He sustained no serious
injuries even though he went over the top of his handlebars after his
bike collided with a car. Gardner came away with abrasions to his left
side and a sore right heel.

In grade school, he injured himself with an arrow while his parents were
out of town. He was taken to the emergency room and a doctor said
Gardner had just missed puncturing a vital organ.

john smith wrote:
In his latest brush, Gardner was a passenger in a Cirrus SR 22 with
pilot Randy Brooks and brother Leslie. They were looking at a houseboat
from the air when the plane dipped into the water, Garfield County
public information officer Becki Bronson said.


I hate it when they do that. Most of us prefer to fly over boats, not along
side them. G



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com

On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 19:26:51 -0800, john smith wrote
(in article ):



In his latest brush, Gardner was a passenger in a Cirrus SR 22 with
pilot Randy Brooks and brother Leslie. They were looking at a houseboat
from the air when the plane dipped into the water, Garfield County
public information officer Becki Bronson said.

"The plane went from 150 mph to none in about 2 seconds," Gardner told
CNN. "Within about a half a second is when we knew that things went from
a beautiful day, a beautiful afternoon, all the way to a pretty bad
situation."


I could see something like that happening. If the pilot is looking at a
houseboat and not flying the airplane, he might not realize how close to the
lake surface he is.

Well, I hope they find the plane and we get to find out more about it.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

john smith writes:

In his latest brush, Gardner was a passenger in a Cirrus SR 22 with
pilot Randy Brooks and brother Leslie. They were looking at a houseboat
from the air when the plane dipped into the water, Garfield County
public information officer Becki Bronson said.

The plane dipped into the water?? Something sounds strange here.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

C J Campbell writes:

I could see something like that happening. If the pilot is looking at a
houseboat and not flying the airplane, he might not realize how close to the
lake surface he is.

If he can see what's on the table in the kitchen, he's too low.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

On Tue, 27 Feb 2007 05:55:25 +0100, Mxsmanic wrote:

C J Campbell writes:

I could see something like that happening. If the pilot is looking at a
houseboat and not flying the airplane, he might not realize how close to the
lake surface he is.

If he can see what's on the table in the kitchen, he's too low.

Nahhh. But if he can see the tooth marks on the gum UNDER the table, THEN he's
too low. :-)

Ron Wanttaja

"C J Campbell" wrote

I could see something like that happening. If the pilot is looking at a
houseboat and not flying the airplane, he might not realize how close to
the
lake surface he is.

Only if you are trying to get low enough to see how the insides are
furnished.

Sounds almost like a "hey, y'all, watch this!"
--
Jim in NC

C,

If the pilot is looking at a
houseboat and not flying the airplane,


...he is no longer a pilot, merely an idiot.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

On Feb 27, 7:57 am, Thomas Borchert
wrote:
C,

If the pilot is looking at a
houseboat and not flying the airplane,

..he is no longer a pilot, merely an idiot.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

And notice, it is another Cirrus pilot.... I'm beginning to wonder...

denny

Here is another version of the story:

http://www.abc4.com/content/specials...9-a2c34663ed80

Olympic gold medalist Rulon Gardner was in a plane that crashed into Lake
Powell on Saturday. He has had his brushes with death before; a motorcycle
crash in 2004 and surviving a night in Wyoming's back country during a
snowmobile outing. He lost a toe to frost bite in that ordeal but it pales
in comparison to his latest story of survival.

Gardner, his pilot friend Randy Brooks and Randy's brother, Les were
returning from a day at Lake Powell on Brooks' house boat. They were making
a return flight in Randy Brooks' Cirrus SR22 single engine plane over the
lake. Gardner said they decided to fly low over the water. Brooks banked the
plane to the left. "His brother [Les] said, 'watch the wheels,' and right as
he said that we caught the first wheel. the left rear landing gear, and it
skipped us and we skipped one more time," said Gardner, "that's when we made
the direct impact with the water."

The plane hit the water at 150 miles per hour. Gardner hit his head on the
window on impact. The three men quickly got out of their safety belts and
abandoned the sinking craft. Gardner said he tried to grab his coat but did
not have time. The men jumped in the frigid water. It was just past 2:30 in
the afternoon. Gardner said he was disoriented from the bump on his head and
he sank quickly at first because of the muscle on his massive frame. He
began to panic, he said, but his two friends told him to get on his back and
paddle and that calmed him down. The trio was able to get their bearings and
head out for the nearest shore which was at least a mile and a half away.
Gardner said he focused and made one stroke at a time even though, he could
not feel his hands. His goal was to get to the beach before nightfall.

After nearly two hours in 44-degree water Gardner and his friends made it to
shore. Exhausted, he tried to stand but was so numb nothing worked. When he
was able to regain his motor function he started looking for his friends who
had barely made it to land several hundred yards away. "I found them," said
Gardner, "They were already in severe levels of hypothermia. Their bodies
were shut down; no motor skills. They could not make rational decisions." He
said they looked at him as if he were a ghost. They had thought he had
drowned. It was now Gardner's turn to help his friends. That muscle and mass
that almost pulled him under had helped insulate his body from the effects
of hypothermia. He was able to think clearly and knew from his previous
ordeal in frigid temperatures that the key was to stay focused. Gardner used
his body temperature to get his friend's core temperatures up.

When they became lucid they worked on drying what little clothing they had
on before the sun went down. Gardner had shed his shoes during the swim to
shore and one of the Brooks brothers took off his shirt. Gardner had a
skimpy cotton T-shirt that he tucked his arms into and the Brook's tore open
a long sleeve T-shirt and wore it together. They also built a makeshift wind
wall. The men huddled. The brothers took turns laying on each other for
warmth but because of Gardner's size he was only able to rotate his front
and back away from the wind. The men kept this up all night. They took turns
sleeping a few minutes at a time and continued to check on each other to
make sure no one got in trouble. Gardner said they also prayed; together at
first and then many silent prayers that they would survive; that they would
be found soon.

At 8:30 in the morning the huddled shivering men noticed a few boats on the
lake but they were too far away to take notice. It was a bass fishing
tournament. "There were only ten boats in the whole tournament," recalled
Gardner. Only three boats came close enough to see and only one boat came
near enough for the fishermen on board to take notice of Gardner and his
friends. After 18 hours of enduring a plane crash, frigid water,
hypothermia, and an overnight temperature of 27 degrees they were finally
rescued. Gardner calls it "a miracle and a blessing" they were spotted.

The boat that picked them up was leading the tournament but the fisherman
said he was prompted to come into the area. "He said, 'Rulon, we would've
never turned over here but for some reason we felt we should come over and
fish in this area. It didn't make sense why we came over here,'" Gardner
recalled.

The three men were taken back to Bullfrog Marina where park ranger EMT's
checked them for injuries. From there, pilot Randy Brooks' son-in-law flew
them to the hospital in American Fork, where they were treated for severe
hypothermia.

Gardner said his family has joked with him that he used up several of his
nine lives from his previous near-death experiences. He said this time he
has used up at least two and possibly three more of those lives. He said it
has occurred to him that maybe he has been preserved for a reason. "There
may be a higher plan out there for me ... and you're always wondering what
difference am I supposed to make," said Gardner.