Alberta man survives 14 frigid hours in overturned car
It was supposed to take Michael Walker two hours to drive between the northern Alberta towns of Eureka River and Debolt to visit family on Christmas evening, but instead he spent 14 hours surviving –20 C temperatures in an upside-down car.
Now, almost a week later, he is recovering in the University of Alberta hospital in Edmonton from surgery for injuries to a vertebra and one of his feet. Walker, 26, also suffered burn marks to his face, which he thinks resulted from the airbag deployment. Still, he is optimistic about his recovery.
"It's pretty surreal," he said. "As awful as it was, I'm still going to be able to walk and do all the things I could do before."
Doctors expect him to remain in hospital for at least a week.
Walker's ordeal started around 5 p.m. MT Dec. 25 on a stretch of Highway 733, about 460 kilometres northwest of Edmonton. That's when he drove off the road into an embankment. He doesn't remember how.
"I just remember coming to while screaming and being stuck upside down in my vehicle," said Walker.
The airbag had deployed, and his head was wedged between the windshield and the window on the driver's side.
Walker smelled exhaust and realized the engine of his mother's Chrysler 200 was still running. He turned it off and started to think about his next steps.
Walker thought the wreck could be seen from the road, but it was hidden in a ditch. He flashed the headlights and honked the horn to get the attention of passing cars.
"There was quite a few vehicles that drove by in the first couple hours," he recalled. "It was still pretty early. No one slowed down. No one heard me."
The vehicle's battery died and Walker realized he could be spending the night in the overturned car. Fear and panic started to set in.
"I was sure I was dead. I thought I was going to die."
Walker had broken a vertebra, an ankle and a foot. To make matters worse, it was getting colder as the temperature dropped to –20 C.
A duffel bag full of clothes he had received earlier in the day as Christmas presents was in the car. Walker layered the garments on his body. He put socks on his hands for gloves.
The whole process took a few hours, due to his injuries. He credited the extra clothing for saving his life.
"I would have been frozen to death in the back seat," he said.
No matter how desperate he felt, Walker refused to break any windows of the car, because they would block the wind. He also didn't know how far he could crawl with his injuries.
The threat of hypothermia was on his mind as the night went on. He fought off the temptation to fall asleep, because he was worried his body was shutting down and that he might not wake up.
Search for Michael
Meanwhile his mother, Bernice Walker, started worrying when Michael hadn't turned up a half hour after his expected arrival time.
"I started texting him and phoning him," she said. "So I phoned his aunts, and they hadn't heard from him."
Walker and a few other family members started searching. Walker created a Facebook post to find out if anyone had seen Michael or the vehicle he was driving.
They filed a police report that night. One of his cousins drove up and down the highways until 2 a.m.
"It was just hard not knowing, because he always calls and lets me know when he gets somewhere he's going," she said.
Michael hears a voice
After a sleepless night, Michael heard someone calling his name around 7 a.m.
"I couldn't scream very loud. My voice wasn't really working," he said. "The rearview mirror actually broke off, so I grabbed that and started banging it against the glass."
The person calling his name was the husband of a high school friend. The two of them were on their way to Red Deer and had decided to follow the route Walker had taken in hopes of finding him.
The man broke the window of the car and gave Walker blankets to keep warm while they waited for emergency crews to arrive.
Firefighters had to use the jaws of life to get Walker out of the car. He was airlifted first to the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Grande Prairie with serious but non-life-threatening injuries and later transferred to Edmonton.
He was being treated for hypothermia when his mother and other family members arrived.
"I couldn't really do any moving," he said. "I just held her hand and she kissed me on the forehead."
Walker may have made some good decisions while he was trapped in that car, but he says the people who stayed up all night looking for him inspired him to stay awake.
"Appreciate your family," he said. "All I could think about while I was stuck in that car was how I didn't really hug anyone goodbye before I left. I just kind said, 'Bye and see ya later.' I took it for granted."
"Every time they leave the room, I make sure I say it [goodbye] every time now."
@Travismcewancbc
Travis.mcewan@cbc.ca
