People think I’m indestructible. One look at me, and it’s easy to see why. I’m six-foot-three, weigh 300 pounds and defeated Russian Greco-Roman wrestler Alexander Karelin—one of the most feared wrestlers in recent history—to win the gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The strongest man on earth, some called me, but I knew where my strength really came from, even if I had to learn the hard way. Folks have heard the stories. How, as a third-grader, I accidentally impaled myself in the belly with an arrow and walked 300 yards to get help. How, while riding my Harley-Davidson, I collided head-on with an out-of-control car and emerged with barely a scratch. How, in 2002, I crashed my snowmobile in the snowy Wyoming wilderness and survived 18 hours in sub-zero temperatures, losing one little toe to frostbite. I told that one right here in Guideposts.
“You have nine lives,” people said. But last February, when the small plane I was aboard crashed into a remote part of Lake Powell near the Utah-Arizona border, I thought I’d used them all up. I remember standing on the right wing of the sinking four-seat, single-engine plane, staring through the fading afternoon light, trying to spot land, and seeing nothing. God, I wondered, is this how it ends? Am I finally coming home? Would I join my older brother who’d died when I was a kid?
The day had started out so innocently. My friend Les Brooks called me on my cell. How would I like to fly with him and his brother Randy to see Randy’s new houseboat on Lake Powell, 45 minutes away? Cool. The trip is beautiful—canyons, pristine wilderness, lakes that shine like coins in the sun. I was studying for my pilot’s license. This might be a chance to get some flying time in myself, if I played my cards right. Weather was awesome. Hardly a cloud in the sky. A little cold, but we’re used to that in these parts. The flight down was a breeze. Randy turned things over to me for a few minutes. I wasn’t about to try any crazy stuff, like skimming low over the water or hugging the canyon walls. The plane handled like a dream. Man, this was the life! We landed at a small airstrip, caught a ride to Randy’s houseboat and kicked back for two hours. Good times.
At 2:00 p.m. we headed back. I was gazing out the window, daydreaming, when Randy said, “Hold on. You’re going to enjoy this.” He dropped the plane down low, 50 feet above the lake. To either side of us towered sheer, 700-foot red-brown canyon walls—the first hints of the Grand Canyon. I grabbed my camera and started snapping. It was unbelievable. I looked up after a few shots. We emerged from the canyon and were way out over the water. Randy should’ve pulled up by now. He was checking the instrument panel. We were still descending, moving at about 155 miles per hour. We’re getting really close to the water, I thought. But I wasn’t worried. Randy was an experienced pilot.
A second later I felt a powerful jolt, as if a truck had hit us from behind. The left rear wheel is in the water! The plane plunged nose-first into the lake. I felt my stomach turn. “Get out!” somebody yelled. I’ve been in so many tight spots that I’ve gotten pretty calm in these situations. I unhitched my seat belt, opened the door and stepped onto the right wing. Randy and Les scrambled out the other side.
The plane was sinking beneath us. I scanned the horizon. “How far are we from land?” I asked.
“About a mile and a half,” Les said. That didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. I’d never swum more than a mile before, and that had been in a warm swimming pool some time back. The water lapped at my feet. Man it was cold. It must have been 40 degrees.
I looked around. Randy and Les were already in the water, swimming away from the plane. “Dude, get off of there!” Randy yelled. “It’s sinking. It will suck you under.”
I reached through the open door, grabbed my coat, wallet and cell, and jumped. I hit the water with a splash and went under. Surfaced, went under again. My arms were full. I tried kicking, but my shoes were on. I surfaced, grabbed hold of Randy and pulled us both under. Randy ripped free of me and surfaced, coughing. My head bobbed up, barely above the water line. “Help me!” I sputtered.
“Lose your stuff!” Randy yelled. “Get rid of it or you’ll drown.”
I kicked off my shoes and my coat. All I had left were a T-shirt and jeans.
“I’m a lousy swimmer,” I said.
“Swim on your back,” he called. “We have to reach land before the cold gets us. We don’t have much time.” How long would we last before hypothermia set in? I took a few strokes, then turned over and looked for Randy and Les. They were moving so fast I couldn’t keep up. But how could I ask them to slow down?
My first thought was to go back to the plane and use it for a float. But by now it had nearly slipped beneath the lake’s glassy surface. This is crazy, I thought. I flipped on my back and started to swim, kicking the water almost in anger. Come on, Rulon, I told myself. You can do this.
I thought of my Olympic victory; the tough-as-nails, take-what-life-gives-you upbringing I’d had on our Wyoming farm, all the situations I’d survived. Twenty minutes later, exhausted, I flipped on my belly to see how far I’d gone. Nowhere, it seemed. I couldn’t find Randy and Les. Maybe they’d already succumbed.
The cold was unreal. My arms had gone numb. I couldn’t last much longer.
Then something came over me. I wasn’t going to die. I wasn’t ready yet. It wasn’t my time. I hadn’t done half of what I’d been called to do on earth. I’d been in the water about 40 minutes by now, long enough for hypothermia to set in. God had given me enormous strength and the will to survive. I flipped on my back again, reached down as deep as I’ve ever reached, deeper than in any of those other near-death encounters, and swam at one speed for more than an hour, till I reached shore.
I lay on my back, wet, shivering and exhausted. I felt worse than I’d ever felt before—colder even than when I was lost in the wilderness. My arms were still numb. No sign of Randy or Les. I feared the worst. The sun began to fade. The temperature would drop to the twenties in no time. The least bit of wind would be deadly. I got to my knees and prayed, God, I’ve been in bad spots before and you’ve stuck by me. You showed me Jesus and heaven. Please show me to safety. I need you now. Several hundred yards away I noticed a cove. I made my way toward it.
There were Randy and Les! Both of them alive, but in bad shape. Randy was convulsing. He had no motor skills and couldn’t speak. Les was lying on top of him, pounding on his shoulders, desperately trying to warm him. “There’s no one on the lake,” Les said. “Won’t be any fishermen till morning.”
“We’re going to have to survive through the night,” I told them.
“You’ve done this before, Rulon. Do you think we’re gonna make it?” he asked.
I hesitated, then remembered that superhuman strength that came to me in the water, the power that had brought me to this cove. “Yes,” I replied. We moved off the water to the rocky beach. Les lay back down on Randy, trying to warm him, while I built a crude windbreak with rocks I gathered nearby. We had no food. And I still couldn’t feel my arms. The temperature plummeted to 25 degrees. How long before our torn, sopping clothes would freeze to our backs? We huddled together, our teeth chattering. Over and over I told myself, We’re going to make it. God will help us.
And all through the night, he did.
I’ve never been so grateful to see the dawn. The three of us scanned the water, trying to spot an early-morning fisherman. A couple of hours later a boat came into view two or three miles distant. We waved and shouted for all we were worth. The boat moved across the water till we could no longer see it. We spotted a second one. Same deal.
Then a third boat. “I’m going to make these guys see us,” Randy said. He took off down the beach, chasing the boat about a mile along the shore. Finally they spotted him, a crazy-looking guy like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, flailing his arms. They made a beeline for him.
“It’s a miracle,” one of them said when they reached us. “We’re here for a bass-fishing tournament. This spot never has bass this time of year. But for some reason I had this urge to check it out.”
“That’s awesome,” was all I could say.
The men dragged us aboard, fed us crackers, granola, tuna and Little Debbie bars. I ate like a fiend. We made for the middle of the lake, where the guys could get cell-phone service, and called the park rangers.
The rangers were blown away by our ordeal. “You should have been unconscious after 30 minutes in that water,” one of them said to us. “No way you should have made it.”
So that’s about it—my most recent brush with death. No, I’m not indestructible. I don’t believe I have nine lives. But there was that moment in the water when I knew what I was meant to do. Fight to survive. And once I made that decision, God did all he could to help me. That’s what it takes to be a true survivor.
