Warren MacDonald on Alive - Memorable TV Interviews

Alive Channel 4 - August

It's a cliché of the highest order, but if you made up Warren Macdonald's story, nobody would believe it. It is a tale of adventure, surreal horror, unimaginable courage and, as with all the best stories, glorious redemption – and the triumph of the human spirit over seemingly insurmountable odds. It is just one of the stories from Channel 4's forthcoming series Alive, which combines first-hand testimonies with dramatic reconstruction to recount extraordinary tales of survival. The series is inspired by the award-winning film Touching the Void.

Attempting to climb a remote mountain on deserted Hinchinbrook Island, off the Queensland coast, Warren was the victim of a freak accident in a dried creek bed that left him trapped under a one-ton bolder. For over two days, as his trekking companion, Geert, tried to make it to civilisation to raise the alarm, Warren endured unimaginable torture. As well as enduring physical and emotional agony, he had to watch as both ants and a yabby (a freshwater crayfish) began to devour his foot, and could only lie there helpless as the pouring rain saw the water levels in the creek bed rise dangerously fast.

Today, Warren lives in Vancouver, where he is a motivational speaker. That he still enjoys spending time in the mountains, hiking and climbing, is extraordinary enough. That he does so despite the loss of both of his legs shows just what a truly remarkable man he is. When he answers the phone, I apologise for having to ring him at 8:15am, Vancouver time. It is not a problem, he reveals. He's been up since 5:15am. I might have known…

Have you always been attracted to the outdoors, and to an active lifestyle?
I suppose I discovered bush walking pretty early on. I got a lot of satisfaction out of throwing a backpack on and disappearing out into the bush for a week or two. That led me to travelling – I lived in London for a couple of years, based myself there, and got a bit of a kick out of being self-sufficient, being comfortable in the world and knowing that everything's going to be OK. I did a lot of travelling over the years, ended up in Africa, and that led to me getting pretty involved in the environmental movement when I got back to Australia. And a lot of that involved being way out there where there are no trails, pretty severe navigation and pretty rough conditions. So in a way I'd always been interested in taking the harder road and challenging myself.

What was it about the isolation of hiking on Hinchinbrook Island that excited you?
I get a bit of a buzz out of getting to places that not many people get to. A lot of people go to church, and that's where they get their spiritual connection. Well, for me, I get that from going outside – that's where I feel really connected. When I was a total petrolhead, I would explain it by saying that going through everyday life in the city, I'd feel like I was running on five cylinders, and the only time I felt like I was running on all eight cylinders was when I was out in the bush.

So you were out on the island - how did you bump into Geert, and what were your first impressions of him?
I think he'd gone across to the island the day before me. He might even have been there a few days. But I got over there, and there were maybe five of us who went across on the boat. And we all sort of split up 'cos I didn't go over there to hike the length of the island in a group, so we all split up and went our separate ways. Every beach that I came to I'd strip off, have a swim, and I got to Little Ramsay Bay, and figured it was a good place to spend the night. And I spotted Geert down on the beach, just sitting at the water's edge with a sketch pad, starkers but for a red bandana, and I just remember thinking 'This guy looks pretty relaxed'. And after I'd set up camp, he'd come back up the beach and we got chatting, and we had an easy connection. So when he raised his plan of climbing Mount Bowen, it was just a piece falling into place.

So you decided to climb the mountain together. The next day you set off, and get a little 'geographically embarrassed', as you've called it, and then it begins to get dark. What happened next?
It was more perplexing than anything else. We both felt that we couldn't have gone past this clearing that was described in the trail notes to use as a campsite. But it wasn't a big deal. I scouted ahead to see if I could find the campsite, but there was nothing. So I came back, we set up camp, put up the tarp above this flat piece of rock, and cooked dinner, and chatted for a few hours, and Geert had got into his sleeping bag, and I was just about to get into mine when I figured I should take a leak. I didn't want to do it close to the creek, which was our drinking water, so I figured I'd climb over an embankment and get as far away as I could.

And what do you remember about what happened next?
I remember it all pretty vividly. The only part that I've lost is just that split second that I was in the air. I've got a pretty vivid recollection of getting my hand into a crack in the rock face, pulling up and starting to climb up the embankment, and then hearing that huge crack. The split second following that is pretty much gone, and the next thing I know I've got that weight grinding down into my legs and just wanting that thing off me.

So one ton of boulder just came away from the embankment and landed on top of your legs? The sheer pain must have been unbearable.
It was. I'd never felt anything like it, and it's still pretty hard to describe. I've described it as this deep burning, but it was much more than that. It felt like my legs were going to burst.

Having been through that, do you think it's possible for people to simply die from pain?
That crossed my mind. I think I asked myself that question in the book I wrote about it. 'How much pain do you have to undergo for it to become too much?' That was a question that went through my mind. I really wondered how much more pain I could take.

So Geert came running over, and you and he spent a long time trying to move the stone, using branches and tree trunks as levers. Presumably at that point you had no idea it actually weighed a ton?
No. Finding that out later actually came as a relief in some ways. I know both Geert and I went through a period of asking ourselves if we could have done something we didn't think of. Because the thing about a ton of rock is that it doesn't actually look that big. You're talking about something maybe the size of a small desk. But you try and pick up a rock the size of an old computer monitor, no way can you lift even that. So it looked like we should have been able to move it, and to hear in the end how much it weighed, and to see the rescue crew take two-and-a-half hours to lift it off me, using hydraulic equipment, was a real redemption.

Saying goodbye to Geert, when he went off for help, must have been a terrible moment.
Yeah, I still put that down as one of the hardest, most emotionally-draining moments for me. Here's a guy I only met the day before, and I've got to watch him walk away. And my life is totally in his hands. That was pretty intense.

He was gone for 45 hours. At what point did you decide that help wasn't coming?
After he left, I knew what I had to do was hang in there, and in a way I felt like my life had led me to this point. Just through challenging myself over the years and putting myself in difficult situations, I felt like I'd been preparing myself for that ordeal. But I got to the point where, as the shock started to take over, into the second day, I started to hallucinate to the point where I lost track of time. I was convinced that, rather that being into the second day, I was into the third day. And if that was true, that meant that something had happened to Geert, and he hadn't made it out. And I felt pretty hopeless at that point. There were times when I resigned myself, decided that that was pretty much it, it was all over, and I was just waiting to die. And then you'd dig yourself out of that hole and try and stay positive. And ten minutes later it would just wash over me again.

Was there a worst moment in the whole thing?
I would say the water rising. To me, that was just pure terror. The yabbies and the ants was more just 'Holy shit, this is just taking the piss!' That was more surreal. But when that water started coming up around my waist, I just couldn't think of anything worse than being trapped the way I was, as if that wasn't enough, but to face drowning as well. That was just terrifying.

So after 42 hours on your own, help arrived. Can you remember what it felt like hearing the helicopter?
Yeah. I'd been trying to manifest the helicopter for days. Every sound that I heard, every aircraft sound, I was almost willing them over to me, just hoping that they might be coming towards me, and I'd been let down at least half-a-dozen times, with sounds that I'd heard that hadn't come to me. So as it got closer, and I realised that it was them, and they were looking for me, I just felt this huge wash of relief, like 'I might have a chance here after all'. And even today, I can't hear a helicopter and not feel pretty emotional about it.

How much longer do you think you could have lasted?
I would be pretty confident in saying that I don't think I would have lasted the night. And the paramedic put forward the same case scenario. It was dark by the time they airlifted us up. They wouldn't have been able to perform the rescue in darkness. So his take was that, had they arrived half-an-hour later, they would have had to leave me there, possibly with him lowered there as well, and a sleeping bag and some food, but his take was that he wouldn't have been able to do anything for me.

So you're talking about a period of half-an-hour that would have cost you your life?
When you get it down to the window for rescue, yeah. It was interesting – when Geert walked away, I said that to him. I said: 'Look, I reckon I can last a couple of days, but that's it, I'm not going to last any more'. I somehow knew that I had that in me to get through a certain period of time, but that was going to be it.

Back in hospital, how did you manage to cope with the news that you'd lost your legs?
It hit me from leftfield at first. When the surgeon explained that he was going to have to amputate both legs, I think just the fact that it was both of them hit me. On some level, I'd accepted that I'd probably lose my right foot. I'd been able to see that, I could look around the rock and I could see my right foot, and it didn't look that good. But to hear him say both just really hit me. When I asked 'How high?' and he said 'Above the knees' that just tore the guts out of me. But I knew I was hanging by a thread, so whatever they needed to do was OK.

And yet you've ended up turning it into something fantastically positive. How did you set about turning such a horrendous experience into something that has helped you and so many other people?
I think probably a couple of reasons. Firstly I've always liked a bit of a challenge - I get a kick out of someone saying 'Oh no, you can't do that' and then my mind starts ticking it over and I'm thinking 'Hang on, we'll see about that'. And I remember waking up in hospital and just having that thought go through my head. I'm not going to sit here and pretend I didn't get depressed – I got depressed, but I managed to never stay depressed. I'd sort of take a look down and see this big, deep, dark black hole, and I'd think 'No, you're not staying down there. Life's too short.' I felt a bit like an explorer, is probably the best way to put it. I thought 'Well, let me try and find out what I might be able to do.'

And the answer to that is 'Quite a lot' isn't it? You've not exactly scaled down your outdoor activities.
Yeah, it actually sped me up more than anything else. I was back out on a mountain ten months later. That just gave me a huge boost – it was like I'd reclaimed a part of my life. And from there, it was just a case of 'Well, that worked, let me see what else I can do,' and I started working out different ways to deal with different types of terrain, and that involved working with prosthetics, and modifying them to use outdoors. And from there I got more serious about rock-climbing. I'd not really been into technical climbing before the accident. Now, the climbing that I do more of than anything else is technical ice-climbing, which is just mind-boggling, when I think back nine years ago, that I'd get into that..

And you met your partner through climbing, didn't you?
Yeah, I actually met Margot and the Banff Mountain Film Festival. I had a film there in 2002, and that had turned out to be a big year. The film actually won the Grand Prize at the festival, and Margot and I met there. She was one of the first women climbing hard, waterfall ice, so she invited me back climbing, and there we go. I'm still in Canada today.

Have you stayed in touch with Geert?
Yeah I have. We went through such a hell of an ordeal, there's always been that bond there. We don't see each other that often. He emigrated to Australia, so he's there now. The last time I saw him we were in Chicago together to do the Oprah show, so I saw him just recently there.

And how do you feel about him?
Well, I mean, shit, he saved my life. He basically did what he set out to do. I know he went through a lot of survivor guilt afterwards, and asking himself if he could have done more. And really, there was nothing else that he could have done. He had to get out and organise a rescue, and that's what he did. And he did a great job of it.

You said at the end of the film that you're not sure you'd want to go back to the way things were before the accident. What do you mean by that?
I didn't come to that overnight. It's something I've only come to realise in the last year or so. I basically mean that the track that I've been sent down with this accident, and the things that I've learned about myself, and the things that I've been able to tap into, the potential that we've got, and how I've really been forced to look for that potential, to make the most out of it, to work out ways around obstacles and just to create opportunities out of whatever comes up, it's just been huge. Along the way I've discovered just how incredibly powerful we are when we take charge of our lives. Even now, I feel it really hard to get across in words, but I've learned so much and developed so much as a person, that I wouldn't give that up now, to have my legs back.

Alive is on Channel 4 on Sundays at 8pm.

By Benjie Goodhart