15 Hours in a Crevasse: The Denali Rescue That Shouldn't Have Worked
About this episode
This episode recounts the extraordinary 15-hour rescue of trauma surgeon Martin Takac after he fell into a crevasse on Denali.
Trauma surgeon Martin Takac came to Alaska to climb Denali, the highest mountain in North America. He reached the summit. The hardest part, it seemed, was behind him. Then, on the descent, the ground disappeared. A hidden snow bridge collapsed beneath Martin, dropping him deep into a crevasse on the Kahiltna Glacier. He survived the fall—but his body became wedged so tightly inside the narrowing walls of blue ice that rescuers couldn't simply pull him back out. What followed was an extraordinary 15-hour crevasse rescue involving Denali guides, National Park Service mountaineering rangers, volunteers, a helicopter pilot, and eventually a piece of equipment no one would normally expect to see on a glacier. Meanwhile, Martin was trapped almost completely motionless as the cold slowly pushed his body into profound hypothermia. In this episode of The Crux: True Survival Stories, we follow the rescue hour by hour and explore hidden crevasses, snow bridges, glacier travel, severe hypothermia, and the decisions that can separate an ordinary descent from a fight for survival. 00:00 — Podcast Cold Open 00:28 — Trapped in Blue Ice 01:43 — Meet Martin Takac 02:46 — Finding the Edge 04:32 —…
More episodes of The Crux True Survival Stories
- 3 Hours in the Heat: The Ultramarathoner Who Vanished in Plain Sight | Disaster Strikes E263
- 15-Year-Old Alone on Kit Carson Peak: A 200-Foot Fall | E262
- Lost in the Outback for 43 Days: The Man Who Didn't Want to be Found | E261
- The 1967 Denali Disaster: 7 Climbers Trapped Above 19,000 Feet | Disaster Strikes E 260
- A Four-Hour Float, Three Days Lost | E 259
- 119 Days Upside Down; Trapped Inside the Capsized Rose-Noëlle | E258
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