Human Fireball in the Mountains of Patagonia

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0:32It is October the 8th, 2010. A crisp spring morning beams down over Lago La Paloma, a lake in Patagonia, Chile. In its mirrored surface, the surrounding peaks are as clear as photographs, their snow-capped reflections almost as vivid as the real thing. Overhead are condor circles, riding the air currents.

1:01At the far end of the lake, beyond a stretch of evergreen forest, the valley climbs upwards through a series of slopes and ledges, becoming narrower until it's a tall ravine with steep, rocky mountain walls on either side. Up here, the serenity is shattered by the din of heavy machinery. Members of a work crew suspended in harnesses are drilling into the walls of the ravine, their power tools gouging out splinters of dark granite. Jamie Nicol can feel the reverberations deep in his bones. The 31-year-old New Zealander is using a petrol-powered rockbreaker to carve a path into the side of the mountain.

1:48When it's finished, the path will become part of a spectacular mountain back trail, linking the lake below with the grassland above. As he works, Jamie feels a drop of liquid fall onto his leg. Frowning, he switches off the tool and touches a finger to the dark splotch on his trousers. He sniffs it and recoils. It's petrol And I thought, oh, that's a bit strange I grabbed the fuel cap and sort of gagged a tweak To see if it was a bit loose or something and carried on Jamie continues drilling Barely a minute has passed, however Before he notices more petrol dripping onto his thigh He shakes his head Must be a problem with the fuel cap He turns off the machine and edges sideways along the cliff to a narrow shelf where he and his colleagues have set up a supply station.

2:51He leans his shoulder against the wall, pulls off his ear defenders and bends down to inspect the fuel cap. Maybe the seal's broken. He unscrews the cap, turning the black plastic disc once, twice, and then… As that end did, it just blew the cap out of my hand and this massive pressurised plume of atomised fuel just went up into the air. The boys on the other side of the ravine looked over and they said it was about 7 to 10 metre high plume of atomised fuel, just a big white cloud went up. There is a loud pop as fuel bursts out of the giant drill, sending an enormous diffuse pillar into the air.

3:39In an instant, Jamie is swallowed by the shimmering cloud of vaporized petrol. I had my eyes squeezed shut and I was just starting to spit out and just trying to say, get me some water because it was kind of stinging in my eyes, this fuel. And I didn't even get the words out, give me some water. And it was like, just a big sound. And all of that atomized fuel just ignited.

4:16TO BE THE WHITE HOUSE Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives. In this episode, we meet Jamie Nicol. In late 2010, the 31-year-old is part of a construction crew building a mountain bike trail through a rugged Alpine valley in Patagonia, Chile. With about a month to go until the contract ends, Jamie is looking forward to finishing the job and returning home to New Zealand, where his family and girlfriend are waiting for him.

4:58But on the morning of October the 8th, while operating heavy machinery, a freak accident threatens his hopes of ever seeing his loved ones again. And as I jumped away from this burning cloud or flames and swung through the air, because then I was like falling and swinging, I was like, oh no, I am the fire. Swinging from a harness above a ravine, burning alive in a ball of flames, Jamie's survival chances appear as remote as the isolated valley he's working in. I remember quite calmly thinking, oh, I can't really see any way out of this. This could be one of those times you die. I'm John Hopkins.

5:40From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Real Survival Stories.

6:08It's the morning of October the 8th, 2010, near the banks of Lago La Paloma in the Aysen region of southern Chile. A group of mountain bikers are peddling through an evergreen forest. Loaded with packs full of construction tools, the cyclists bob and weave, riding out of their saddles, thigh muscles burning, lungs aflame. These men are all employees of a trail management company from New Zealand, hired to build a bike track through the Patagonian wilderness. At the front of the pack is crew leader, Jamie Nicol. The 31-year-old has been working for New Zealand Trail Solutions for the past year.

6:49In that time, he's built trails in Mexico, Canada, and now here, deep in the back country of southern Chile.

6:59They had that contract from Ken Dart, an American billionaire who discovered mountain biking in his 50s and thought it'd be pretty cool to buy a few properties and get people to build tracks for him. For an avid mountain biker like Jamie, this is an ideal gig. A chance to work outdoors with his hands, building infrastructure for a sport he loves, even if it is for the private enjoyment of a billionaire. Above the treeline, the terrain steepens. Granite peaks rise above their heads, dark walls streaked with ribbons of ice slowly melting in the spring sunshine. Pockets of avalanche debris rest in the gullies.

7:44The crew presses on, riding their bikes along yards of freshly laid trail. After a while, they reach the bottom of a craggy ravine, a deep, narrow scar running through the massive. A series of short waterfalls leads up to the ridgeline, beyond which a stretch of grassland extends towards the next valley. The workers step off their bikes and leave them by the side of the trail. Jamie looks up at the vertical granite sides of the gorge. This is their next challenge, to carve a ledge into the rock face, so the bike trail can continue up through the ravine to the grassland above. We thought with a bit of work we could probably open that up to being more accessible where someone could push a mountain bike through to then carry on and access the grassland to go for a bit of a tour that way.

8:41So that was really my job was to try and cut a ledge through this remained.

8:49The men begin unpacking their gear. In total, Jamie is in charge of a crew of 15 men. There is a certain irony to a group of mountain bikers working so closely together in a team. It's a marked change of pace from their highly individualized sport. In fact, this aspect of mountain biking is why it first appealed to Jamie. The state of being alone, cycling with just the sound of his own breathing for company. Growing up in the suburbs of Wellington, he was always drawn to activities that allowed him to get lost in his own little world. Dad had really encouraged us to play soccer, and I just always wanted to be subbed, you know, so that I could go climb the trees and play in the stream around the area.

9:37So I think for me, mountain biking, that's your own mission a little bit. Mountain biking ticked all the boxes for this adventurous, outdoorsy kid. It helped that he had a natural talent for it. It wasn't long before Jamie was competing at a high level, winning international competitions, and carving out a name for himself on the junior circuit. One success led to another. Within a few years, he was on course for a career as a professional mountain biker. But as the accolades mounted, so did the pressure to perform He found himself losing sight of what had attracted him to the sport in the first place Because I was good, I had people in New Zealand that were supposedly helping to Streamline people towards being professional athletes And telling me that I should wear better clothing and things at prize giving and different stuff and it's like the wrong thing to tell an independent, maybe slightly rebellious teenager.

10:35So all of that started tainting the picture for me. Jamie took a step back from mountain biking, leaving him with enough free time to pursue other burgeoning interests. After high school, he took a vocational course in outdoor education, which trained him in a variety of disciplines, from kayaking and caving to rock climbing and mountaineering. After that, he joined a ski patrol team in the mountains of the North Island, before heading overseas to Europe and Asia, where he travelled and worked odd jobs for a few years, going wherever the mood struck. If freedom is what he was searching for, then surely this was it.

11:15But as the years passed, Jamie only found himself with more questions. It was a bit challenging for me in my late 20s, being like, oh, what am I? And, you know, do I need to do some special training so that I get some sort of label? But what would that be? I don't know. After returning to New Zealand following his years abroad, Jamie found himself stumbling back into something familiar. The very activity, in fact, that had made him resist the idea of labels in the first place. While working as a park ranger on the west coast of the South Island, he received a call one day from a childhood friend.

11:53She presented him with an opportunity. Her current partner had got these contracts of building mountain bike tracks all over the world. She rang me up and she's like, what do you think about this, Jamie? And I was like, sounds so good. Got to go and spend some time with my girlfriend. I've been down here on the West Coast for too long. And so, yeah, finished that job and went back up to Nelson and sort of got back into that connection with my partner. there. And then six months later, I was like, oh, what do you think? I think I might like to go and do this job. And she was like, yeah, go and do it.

12:30And so, with his girlfriend's blessing, Jamie set off once again. Building mountain bike trails, it turned out, was the perfect way to bring together his unique set of skills and experience, a job tailor-made for him. The first project was in the desert of northern Mexico, followed by a three-month stint down in southern Chile. I remember coming into land and just seeing this landscape of tussock and mountains and just sparsely populated. And that kind of tickled me. I like places that are kind of remote, so it looked pretty cool. After Chile, it was up to Canada for two months. When that project ended, Jamie was offered another contract, a six-week stint back down in Patagonia.

13:18This time, however, he hesitated. He'd now been working overseas for almost a year, and the demands on both his time and his body were starting to get to him. But then it was only a short-term contract. One last job. I do remember, though, being a little bit tired on a deeper level and just wanting to be back in New Zealand and get that recharge of my homeland. But I was like, ah, it's just six weeks. I'll be right. Go and do this six weeks.

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16:46The End It's the morning of October the 8th. Jamie sits in his harness, suspended 30 feet above the ground. He's using a petrol-powered rockbreaker to chisel away the granite, making a start on what will eventually be a bike trail carved into the side of this ravine. The bright yellow rockbreaker is large and heavy, about the size of a chainsaw. It's unwieldy And Jamie has to balance the bulky chassis on his thigh While the drill bit vibrates against the rock I had the machine then And was cutting into this cliff And noticed a bit of fuel had like dripped on my leg And I thought, oh that's a bit strange I grabbed the fuel cap and sort of gave it a tweak To see if it just was a bit loose or something And carried on But after a few moments Jamie notices it again A steady drip of gasoline leaking from the fuel cap onto his leg So I turned the machine off, lowered myself down onto the ledge And then just walked back to the other end where we had our bags and our fuel Still roped up and strapped into his harness Jamie sidesteps along the ledge to the flat, narrow shelf Where they've based their supply station He removes his air defenders and inspects the leaky fuel cap.

18:08No obvious issues, must be something else. So he starts unscrewing the black plastic cap. He gives it a couple of quick twists, two complete turns. Then there's a loud, sharp, sudden hiss.

18:26As that undid, it just blew the cap out of my hand and this massive pressurized plume of atomized fuel just went up into the air Some malfunction inside the machine must have caused the fuel vapors to expand creating a dangerous buildup of pressure within the tank When Jamie unscrews the cap, he is engulfed in a pungent haze of vaporized fuel The rank, chemical taste of petrol, coats his tongue. With his stinging eyes squeezed shut, he shouts to his colleagues to get him some water. He needs to wash this stuff off his face. I didn't even get the words out, give me some water and it was like, boom, just a big sound.

19:11And all of that atomized fuel just ignited. It doesn't take much, just a spark of static electricity, and the plume of atomized fuel becomes a column of flame reaching 30 feet up, with Jamie at the heart of it, encased in a straitjacket of blistering heat. I was like, I need to get away from this, and I still tied on to these ropes and harnesses, and so I just jumped away from the machine, because I knew I could just jump off the cliff below me, and I'd be fine, because I'm all tied on these ropes. And as I jumped away from this burning cloud or flames and swung through there, because then I was like falling and swinging, I was like, oh no, I am the fire.

19:59Drenched in fuel, he's been lit up like an effigy. And now he's swinging above the ravine 30 feet up, burning alive in midair. I remember quite calmly thinking, oh, I can't really see any way out of this. This could be one of those times you die.

20:34It's mid-morning, high in the mountains of Patagonia. Overlooking a pristine alpine lake, a blazing fireball swings from a rope across a deep, narrow ravine At its white-hot center, secured in a harness anchored to the cliffside, is Jamie Nichol I just couldn't see any way out of it You're like, there's no rolling on the ground, there's no running into the water You're like tied on to a rope hanging off a cliff and you're burning The fire sounds like wind rushing in his ears, a low, billowing roar. He can feel the intensity of the blaze increasing as the flames feed hungrily on his petrol-soaked clothing and skin.

21:23And yet, oddly, even now, in the seconds before he surely burns to death, a strange sense of detachment settles over him. I was like, oh, it's just pretty plain. oh, this could be one of those times you die, was the thought. And so there was a very calm moment, and then swung through, smacked into the cliff quite hard, and then I think really sort of panic set in. The calm of a moment ago has gone, replaced by horror and heat, searing, incandescent heat. With his nerve-ending screaming, Jamie tries to rip off his t-shirt, tearing at the fabric, but it won't budge. As I pulled it, I was like, oh, I've got a full-body harness on.

22:14That's not coming off. There's no way out of this. I'm burning. And so I was just lifting my head up and was just smacking at my face to try and protect my earwake and keep the flames off it. And then I was yelling out to my mate, help, help, help. He thrashes wildly, jerking and twisting in his harness. flames flicker up past his chin, singeing the strap of his helmet. When they reach his eyelashes, the air thickens with the acrid stench of burning hair. The nylon waistband of his shorts starts to melt, fusing with his body. Bubbling red blisters form on his skin. He is being cooked alive. I was like, man, no one's going to help me in the time that I've got.

23:00So I've got to do something about getting out of this situation. Direct exposure to open flame can cause life-threatening third-degree burns in just seconds. Jamie has been engulfed for almost half a minute. However much he beats the fire with his hands and arms, he can't seem to extinguish it. He's got to try something else. Maybe if he can remove his T-shirt, he can get the Blaze under control. But that will mean removing both his helmet and his harness first. I just went down into the flames, put my head into the flames, bent over, bent my head over and started undoing the helmet. With his head tilted down towards the flames, Jamie fiddles furiously with the clasp of his chin strap.

23:49Pulsing waves of heat radiate into his face as he pours his focus into this one small task. Once the chinstrap is undone, he can start to remove his harness and his clothes. But before he can finish taking off his helmet, everything stops.

24:14The flames abruptly disappear, flickering out with barely a whisper. The echo of their roar fades to silence as if they were never there at all. Dazed, Jamie looks down. His shirt has disintegrated completely. That'll be why the fire vanished. It had already devoured its main source of fuel, burned itself out. It's a monumental relief. But then Jamie looks at the damage the fire has caused. My arms, I just remember it being like grey and like rolled up paper as if someone had wet some paper and rubbed it for too long and it had just sort of all started coming apart. And I looked at my hands and they were kind of wet looking in a way, I guess because I'd lost a lot of skin.

25:08His body hangs in the harness, slumped against the rock. The burns on his torso glisten like fresh paint. The outer layer of skin seared away to reveal the seeping red tissue underneath. He can just about hear dim voices bouncing off the walls of the ravine. His colleagues, presumably, telling him to sit tight, that help is on its way. But Jamie isn't in the mood to hang about.

25:40I was like, man, I do not want to wait around. And you have that window when the body's pumped you with adrenaline and things, and that's the time to act.

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