Hiker, 33, Spent Hours Stuck in Knee-Deep Quicksand Before Being Located by Drone and Rescued

A hiker in Utah was stuck in near-freezing quicksand for several hours before a drone helped locate him. A rescue team was able to pull the man to safety.

The adventure-film-like scene began on the morning of Sunday, Dec. 7, when 33-year-old Austin Dirks was on his second day of a 20-mile backpacking expedition in Arches National Park and became trapped in quicksand near Courthouse Wash, he told Backpacker. 

“I’m no stranger to getting my feet wet, or, you know, having to trudge through mud even,” Dirks, an experienced hiker from Glenwood Springs, Colo., told the magazine. “So [initially] it didn’t, it didn’t strike me as unusual … I’ve hiked in conditions almost identical to that. There were no immediate red flags that stuck out.”

With his leg at a painful angle and the risk of being unable to move in the cold, Dirks decided to call for help, according to the magazine. A park ranger was the first person to reach the hiker, but even a shovel couldn’t help Dirks extricate himself.

Fortunately, team members from Grand County Search and Rescue arrived, Backpacker, NBC affiliate KSL and NBC News reported. The first responders used a drone to locate Dirks’ exact location, and found him knee-deep in quicksand. 

“He described it as like being in a ski boot, how your ankle is bent forward and it’s in that forward position,” John Marshall, the incident commander of the rescue team, told KSL. “He found it painful to try to sit back and lean back out of it, which is a method that you can use to extract yourself.”

Footage captured by Grand County Search and Rescue shows the complex rescue. With the help of a ladder and vehicle traction boards, rescuers were able to get close enough to Dirks to help dig him out, NBC News reported. It was approximately 21 degrees, but felt colder because no sunlight was reaching that section of the canyon.

“One of the first things that we said was just, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ ” Jake Blackwelder, a rescue technician who responded to the incident, told the outlet. “He was pretty tired and stuck and ready to get out.”

Once Dirks was out of the quicksand, he almost fell to the ground, according to his Reddit post of the rescue.

“When they finally pulled me free, my shoe almost tore off but held on,” Dirks wrote. “My leg had no feeling left in it and nearly collapsed when I put weight on it. I carefully crossed the ladder to solid ground.”

Dirks said that warming packs and a heated blanket helped revive the feeling in his leg, allowing him to exit the canyon with the first responders. One team member drove him back to his car, so he could go home, “sore but intact,” the hiker wrote. 

“The National Park Service, Grand County Search and Rescue, EMS and the Garmin dispatchers did everything right,” Dirks added in the Reddit post. (The hiker and Grand County Search and Rescue did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.)

“Without them I would have been stuck there until nightfall. My family wouldn’t have called it in until I was overdue at 6pm,” he continued. “I would not have been found by chance. I owe them more than thanks.”

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In his interview with NBC News, the incident commander warned about how easy it is to become trapped in quicksand. 

“It’s got a good bite. The more people struggle, the deeper they go,” Marshall told the outlet. “So, one or two footsteps into that sand is really all it needs to initiate that initial stuck factor.”