
"I sat there for 12 hours and I knew for sure I was dead. But I didn’t die,“ said Osmun. Photos by Ryan Osmun.
It was Valentine’s Day 2019 when Ryan Osmun, a 34-year-old from Mesa, Arizona, and his girlfriend, Jessika McNeill, decided to hike the Subway, a remote, semi-technical slot canyon trail in Utah’s Zion National Park. Well into their trip, Osmun stepped in a tiny patch of quicksand that completely swallowed his leg. As a winter storm moved in, McNeill had to make a desperate hike out of the canyon to find help while Osmun tried to stay alive, stuck in an icy riverbed as more and more snow fell.
Here is Osmun’s story, as told to Outside.
We’d hiked in Zion before this, but not the Subway. I figured it would be a long day—five hours in, five hours out. And the weather was sunny when we started. At the beginning of the hike, we found a stick that was about six feet long and took it with us to poke into the ground whenever we crossed water to make sure it was okay to step there.
As we hiked, snow started lightly sprinkling off and on. About five miles in, we had to walk through a pond. Less than five feet from the edge, Jessika’s front foot sunk. Then she fell forward, and both legs started to sink. I told her to stop moving and not to freak out, and then I went to help. I got her by the shoulders and pulled her out. That’s when I felt my leg sinking in. I didn’t pay attention to what was going on; I figured I’d just pull it out.
When Jessika got to shore, my right leg sank all the way to my thigh. It was also up to my left calf, and I was able to free it. The ground that sunk was just a tiny area around me, but I couldn’t move my right leg at all. I couldn’t even stand to get leverage to pull on it. Jess gave me the stick. I jammed it down the side of my leg. She got another stick, and I tried to wiggle and pull my leg, but nothing was moving at all.
She started scooping sand with both hands, but it was refilling faster than she could pull it out. Her entire body was soaking wet. I told her she had to stop; she was wasting her energy. I was not going to be able to get out of the sand.
It was just us. There was no cell reception. And I knew no one would ever come across us until the next person hiked the canyon, and who knows when that would have been. Jessika was afraid we were going to die.
I told her she had to leave. I didn’t know what would happen, but I didn’t want to think that she wouldn’t be able to get out.
About a half-hour after she left, it started snowing like crazy. That’s when I thought that I probably was not going to make it out of here.
I was wearing a big jacket that would keep me warm for a while. I pulled my beanie over my face and zipped my jacket all the way up so I could pull my head inside. The stick had a Y shape at the end that I was able to rest on. The snow lasted 30 or 40 minutes. When I pulled my head up out of my jacket, there was close to an inch of snow on top of me. Then the skies cleared up, and it was actually kind of nice for a couple hours.
It started snowing again and didn’t seem like it was going to stop. I pulled my head back into my jacket and fell asleep. I don’t know how long I was asleep, but I woke up falling backwards into the water. It had been about five hours since Jess left, and it was getting dark. I figured if they were bringing a helicopter to pull me out, it would have been there by now. Sitting in the water, I tried to get up but couldn’t. I had no energy. So I pulled my hands into my jacket sleeves, which were basically frozen, and grabbed the stick, which was still stuck in the ground, and pulled myself up. I knew that if I fell back in, I wouldn’t be able to pull myself back out.

When I got to the hospital in St. George, they brought in Jessika, and we both started crying. I couldn’t stop thanking her and telling her how strong and brave she was.