Closer to God
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Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Every now and again, I'll find a story that's just really upsetting to me. Now, obviously, a lot of the stories I cover are all quite distressing. But today's story, which is about a missing hiker named Mike Turner, it just really upset me. It actually made it really hard to record this episode.

So consider this your warning that I personally believe this is a very upsetting story, but an important story that we would not be covering if there wasn't some real weight behind it. And I think the moral of this story ultimately is you really need to treasure your family while they're still around. And you'll see what I mean when you hear the rest of this story. It's heartbreaking.

But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, on the hottest day of the year, offer to give the Amazon Music follow button a ride to work. And when they get in your car, blast the heat on full and refuse to stop. Even though it hurts you, it hurts them too. Okay, let's get into today's story. The show is brought to you by Progressive.

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Your next great adventure awaits on Audible. Start listening today when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com/ballin. On the afternoon of August 2nd, 1998, a 48-year-old 6-foot 6-inch tall hiker named Mike Turner stopped for a moment and took his bottle out of his backpack and took a sip. Mike was standing in a cluster of trees on the side of this mountain about 11,000 feet up inside of an area in Wyoming called the Fitzpatrick Wilderness.

The Fitzpatrick Wilderness is easily one of the most visually striking places in the entire world.

It's like all of the extremes of nature kind of collided together in this one place. You have these massive, you know, 13,000 foot tall snow-covered mountain peaks, you have glaciers, and then right below them, right at the base of these huge mountains, are all these lush green fields full of tall grass and flowers and animals running around and little streams and lakes. I mean, it's absolutely picturesque. In fact, some of the pictures of this area, they look fake. They're so ridiculous.

But the real reason the Fitzpatrick Wilderness was known as this unbelievably beautiful place was because really it went kind of untouched by people because it was so hard to get to. I mean, basically the only people who stepped foot in this very surreal landscape were really experienced outdoors people like Mike Turner. Because it took a lot of know-how just to get to this area and to survive in this area. This is a very, very rugged place.

But Mike Turner was not content just going to the Fitzpatrick Wilderness. He really wanted to experience the true nature of this area. And so what he was doing while he was out there was hiking off trail. And so he's in this totally remote place, hiking around in an area that was not even marked on a map.

Now, to anybody who has not done any compass and map navigating out in the wild, this might seem totally reckless. And to a degree, it sort of is. But it's something that people totally have a knack for. I can speak from my own experience when I was in the military. We did a lot of compass and map navigating, like in the backcountry in Alaska and also in California. And I was terrible at it.

But I can tell you some of my classmates definitely had sort of like an innate skill to understand where they were in relationship to terrain features. And then if you combine that with proper training and experience, I mean, these guys got really good at just being able to navigate with a map and compass. And so Mike was one of those people that really was an excellent navigator. And so walking off trail like this in such a remote place was sort of routine for him.

Now, Mike was not some full-time adventurer. This was something he did that was sort of a passion for him. His job was he was a reverend at a Christian church in Idaho, and he had been for 10 years. And Mike loved being a reverend. He loved his congregation and, you know, his wife, Diane, and his three kids. He had two daughters and a son. They were all super involved in the church. I mean, it was a great thing.

But at the same time, being a reverend was a lot of work, a lot of responsibility, and a lot of stress. And a way that Mike had found to kind of cope with that growing stress of being a reverend was to go out hiking. He actually found, sort of ironically, that when he was out in nature hiking, he felt closer to God than when he was inside of his church preaching.

And it was because he sort of looked at the world as this grand gift from God. And imagine being in the Fitzpatrick wilderness, looking at this unbelievable terrain. I mean, it looks like, you know, God made this. I mean, who else could? This is so strikingly beautiful. And so with that as context, on this particular day that Mike had stopped to sip water 11,000 feet up on this mountainside,

This was actually the fourth day of a nine-day pre-planned solo hike through this wilderness that Mike had been planning out for over a year.

Now, even though Mike was a very skilled hiker and backpacker and survivalist, he knew doing any sort of really long solo hike came with a whole bunch of risks that only really come if you're solo hiking. The biggest risk being that if you get into trouble when you're out on a solo hike, well, you're all alone. So you better have a really good plan for what you're going to do if you get into trouble.

And so Mike had come up with a great plan. He had spent that whole year mapping out this off-trail path he was going to take over these nine days. It was a 60-mile trip through the Fitzpatrick Wilderness, and he drew out basically exactly where he expected to go on a map, and he gave that map with all the different coordinates and exactly where he'd be on each day to his wife, who also was a very enthusiastic hiker.

And he told her, on the ninth day, you're going to meet me at this spot at the end of the 60 miles at noon on this ninth day right here. And I will meet you there and you can take me home. However, that plan had changed on that fourth day as Mike was sipping his water on the mountainside. And only Mike knew it because he had no way to communicate back to his friends and family. Cell phones were very primitive at the time, so he couldn't just call somebody. I mean, basically, if he deviated his plan, he was the only one who would know.

Now, the reason why Mike, on the fourth day of this nine-day trip, decided to alter his course made a lot of sense. So even though Mike was technically solo hiking, he was not actually alone. With him was the family dog named Andy, who was a very good-natured Black Lab mix who loved going hiking.

And over the course of the previous day and then into this fourth day, he and Andy had been up at elevation at about 13,000 feet walking on some icy parts of the mountain, and Andy's paws were getting really raw from kind of walking on the jagged ice. And that day, on the fourth day, Mike had noticed Andy was whimpering and struggling to keep up when normally Andy was super energetic and running all around.

And he knew that, you know, my course that I'm supposed to be going on for the next few days is going to be going all through these mountains with all this ice. And I don't think Andy can keep up. He's not going to be able to do it. And so he had decided to side skirt the mountains to avoid the ice. And even though this path was definitely going to take him a little bit longer, it would still bring him to the same destination, to that same pickup spot where his wife and his family would be waiting for him.

Now, Mike understood that by deviating his route, not only would his family not know, like they would have no idea where he was, but also this secondary route he'd be taking to save Andy's paws was going to take a little bit longer than the intended course would take. And so he knew he was not going to be there at the time he said he would. So he was not going to be there at noon on the ninth day. It was going to be maybe the 10th day or beyond.

But Mike had planned for this contingency. He had brought extra supplies specifically if he had to extend his journey. And so he felt confident that even though this was a big risk, you know, to take this path that nobody knows he's on, he felt he could do it with no problems.

And so after Mike finished taking a sip of his water, he pulled a bowl from his pack that was for Andy and he poured some water in it and placed it on the ground. And Andy kind of made his way over and began lapping at the water. And as he did, Mike looked down and saw Andy's tail wagging happily. And Mike felt confident, you know, seeing how much better his dog was already doing, that this was definitely the right decision. Taking the secondary route was definitely the way to go.

But as Mike waited for his dog to finish drinking, Andy suddenly stopped and then lifted his head up with his ears perked up like he had sensed something, and then before Mike could stop him, Andy just took off running into the trees and disappeared.

Now, Andy was a playful dog that periodically kind of ran around on the hikes like this. But remember, Mike is out in the backcountry and he's deviated his path. He needs to be really sure of where he is. He can't afford to make mistakes here. And if Andy just goes rogue and he has to go chase after him, the opportunity to get turned around or lost or maybe come in contact with some big predator that maybe Andy has sensed were pretty high. And so Mike grabbed the bowl and took off running into the trees after Andy.

And after going into those trees, he emerged on the other side, Mike did, and suddenly he was hit with this incredible view kind of looking down towards this lake. And there was this huge clearing on the side of the mountain that was filled with these huge boulders, like boulders the size of small cars, and they were everywhere. Basically, the mountain as it eroded, chunks of rock were rolling down into this clearing that was sort of at a slant down towards this lake.

And it just filled the entire clearing with boulders to the point where you really couldn't actually walk on solid ground. The only way to get from where Mike was and where Andy was, because at this point he could see his dog, his dog was making his way towards the lake. Clearly, that's what Andy had sensed, the lake, and he was going to get a drink or something. And so Mike knew to get to his dog, he would basically have to climb onto the boulders and jump from rock to rock all the way to his dog.

And so Mike tried calling for Andy one more time to stop and come back, but Andy was on his own program going towards the lake and so resigned to the situation. Mike climbed on top of the first boulder and began jumping boulder to boulder in the direction of his dog.

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Hi, I'm Alison Marino, host of What's a Podcast? The Revolution Redefined, a new documentary series from Oxford Road and the team behind Age of Audio. We dive in into how podcasting exploded into a storytelling revolution and how big tech and big money are threatening its future now. You'll hear from podcast industry heavyweights like Ira Glass, Adam Carolla, Guy Raz,

Leo Laporte, the Mycelis Brothers, and more. What's a podcast? The Revolution Redefined is out now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. One week later, on the afternoon of August 9th, Mike's wife, Diane, along with her three kids and some family friends, stood at the start of a trail called the Big Sandy Trail, which was the designated meeting spot where Mike said he would meet his family at the end of this nine-day journey.

And as Diane stood there at this meeting place, she kept anxiously checking her watch. Mike was late, and not just a few minutes late, he was a full 24 hours late,

Mike was supposed to be there on the 8th at noon, and now it's the 9th, and he's still not here. But remember, Mike is a guy that did stuff like this fairly regularly. He was very competent out in the wild, and everybody knew when he went off on this journey that of course there was some variability to when he would actually arrive at the meeting place. You know, despite Mike saying, "I'll be there on the 8th at noon,"

Diane and her friends and family all sort of felt like, well, I hope he's there at noon, but realistically, he might be, you know, several hours or maybe even a day late, and that's okay. And so the day before, when he didn't show up at noon, people were anxious, but they were okay. Now, 24 hours later, and still Mike has not shown up, there's no trace of him, Diane and her kids and the family friends, they were starting to worry.

And in fact, before Mike left on this trip, he told Diane that if for some reason he does not show up on the 9th, so 24 hours after he said he would be there, and it's past 4 o'clock on the 9th, this is the trigger point, that Diane should call the authorities and assume something is wrong and send out a search party. And so Diane is checking her watch on the 9th, and soon enough, it's 4 p.m., Mike's not here, 4.05, 4.10, 4.15, still no Mike.

And even though she knew her husband said, now it's time, go get the authorities, she just couldn't bring herself to do it. She felt like it's such a huge to-do if you get a search party organized out here. I mean, that's a massive effort, super expensive. And she felt like the second she told authorities that Mike would come walking out of the wilderness with a big story to tell and a big apology for being late. And so she convinced herself that, you know what? Give him one more day. I'm sure he's bound to show up.

But the next day, on the 10th, when still there was no sign of Mike, that morning, Diane did go to the authorities and she reported Mike missing. And just as she expected, a massive search was launched for Mike.

But you need to keep in mind here that again, Diane and the searchers and everybody besides Mike has no idea that he has altered the path he was on. And they're going to be searching this massive expanse of wilderness that even with the best of conditions, knowing exactly where someone is on their route, I mean it's so hard to find people out here. I mean it's totally rugged, things

Things were obscured from view, from the air, from the land. There are areas you can't even get to. There's predators out there. I mean, this is a dangerous thing to be doing. And again, they don't know he's not even on that path anymore. He's deviated. And so despite helicopters in the air, you know, horseback teams out in force, hundreds of volunteers combing the area looking for Mike, nobody found a trace of him. And after two weeks went by with this huge search producing nothing, they finally had to call it off.

And so of course, you know, Mike's family is just unbelievably devastated. They have no idea what's happened to Mike. But five days later, so five days after the end of the official search, we're now at August 28th at this point,

A couple of backpackers were hiking through an area in the Fitzpatrick Wilderness that was actually about 17 miles away from the last known sighting of Mike Turner. Now, that was not when he went through the trees and saw the boulders. This was around the time Mike literally began the nine-day epic journey. Somebody had seen him in one area. And so where these two backpackers are is about 17 miles away from there.

And so these two backpackers, they were aware that Mike Turner was missing because there were flyers up all over the place around the outside of the Fitzpatrick wilderness at the beginning of all the trailheads and in town and all over the place. So they were aware of this, aware that Mike was missing and his dog was missing. And as they're just sitting there taking a break, this totally emaciated, ragged looking black lab came out of the tree line, whimpering and looking like it was on its last legs. It was Andy.

And right away, these backpackers knew that's the missing dog. And so they lured the dog to them with granola bars and Andy came up and he ate, they gave him water. And just so you know, Andy would survive and make a full recovery. And so after these backpackers have Andy in their possession, they immediately contacted authorities who then got in touch with Mike's family and said, hey, we found Andy.

And so you can imagine the absolute roller coaster of emotion Mike Turner's family is going through. Now that they hear Andy is okay, Andy's come out of the forest, they're thinking, oh my goodness, maybe Mike is okay too. Maybe Andy can lead us back to where Mike is. Mike is this totally skilled survivalist. He's gotta be alive out there.

And so after discovering Andy, a second search was launched using Andy as the guide dog. They basically went to that spot where the backpackers found him and basically Andy's family and some other volunteers allowed Andy to lead them back into the wilderness, hoping it would lead them to Mike. And so as this new search began with Andy leading the way, a separate backpacker who we will call Brian just for the sake of the story, that's not his name, but we're gonna call him Brian,

He was hiking through a section of the Fitzpatrick Wilderness, not near where Andy was. This is a separate area. And Brian, he was not involved in looking for Mike Turner. But he was aware that Mike was missing because, again, he had seen all the missing person flyers, he'd seen the news. And when he began his own hike into the wilderness, he had seen at the start of his own trailhead a big flyer with a picture of Mike Turner and his dog saying he was missing.

So Brian's aware of Mike Turner's absence, but he's just going on his own hike into the wilderness. And after a few days of solo hiking his way into this totally rugged expanse, he eventually reaches this kind of dense cluster of trees about 11,000 feet up on the side of a mountain, and he walks through those trees, and when he emerges on the other side, out in front of him sloping down to a lake is this unbelievable boulder field that practically takes his breath away. But that was not the thing that really got his attention.

Instead, as he's taking in these boulders and this unbelievable view of the mountains in the distance and this lake, he noticed there was a man sitting on a rock fairly far across this boulder field with his back to Brian, just staring at the lake.

Now, remember, this is like the middle of nowhere, and Brian certainly was not expecting to come across any other person on this journey. And so naturally, he thought, okay, I need to go up and make sure this guy is okay, or if nothing else, I want to talk to him. I mean, this is a very rare thing to come in contact with other people out here. And so Brian began walking towards the sky to see what was going on. Well, that man was the missing hiker, Mike Turner. My goodness, did Mike Turner have a story to tell.

But to understand Mike's story, we need to go back 29 days to the point when Andy the dog had taken off running from Mike and he had gone into the boulder field and Mike had emerged through those trees and seen the boulders, he'd seen his dog, and he began climbing onto that first rock to begin making his way towards his dog. So Mike, he gets up on that rock and he begins hopping from boulder to boulder to boulder.

And at first it's going fine. He gets about halfway across the boulder field, he's yelling to Andy to stay put, and he's kind of making his way, it's all good. But then he reaches this one particularly large boulder that when he jumped onto it, it was kind of unstable and it began to wobble under his feet. And so instinctively, Mike tried to leap off of the wobbly boulder onto another boulder that was right nearby.

But when he jumped, he sort of undershot this second boulder and so did not land on it and stay put on it. Instead, he kind of hit the face of this second boulder and slipped down to the ground.

Didn't hurt Mike, he's just now on the ground in this small space between the boulders. However, unfortunately, the wobbly boulder right behind Mike, well, it didn't just continue to wobble, it wobbled to the point where it rolled forward and literally came to a rest against the second boulder that Mike had just jumped onto and failed to land on top of. Basically, wobbly boulder impacted second boulder, sandwiching Mike between them.

But critically, it did not harm Mike. This is going to take some explaining, but it'll make sense after I go through it. Wobbly Boulder had what looked like almost a U-shaped cutout on the face of the Wobbly Boulder. Like imagine a perfectly round boulder, but there's like a divot kind of sitting on the front of it. And it just so happened that on the second boulder in front of Wobbly Boulder, it also had a sort of divot on the face of it kind of looking like a U-shape.

And when these two boulders collided, these 800-pound boulders, Mike happened to be standing exactly in the position where those two cutouts wrapped around him like shackles. They basically pinned his ankles together, where he could not pull his legs up and out of this totally tight space that was just big enough to hold his legs in place. It was like he was anchored to the ground.

But again, Mike is unharmed. His legs aren't broken. He's not battered. Nothing. He just cannot move.

Now, Mike instantly would have known this is a really big issue because he can't move these 800 pound boulders. They are 800 pounds and he's by himself minus his dog who can't really help him with the boulders. And so Mike immediately just jumps into, oh my goodness, I have to find a way to somehow just move these boulders. Even just a millimeter, a centimeter would be enough to free his feet.

And so he pulled off his bag and one by one, he pulled off every piece of equipment he had, including his camera tripod and his stove and whatever he had. And he did everything he could to try to pry these stupid boulders off of him, but they would not budge. And so after two hours of trying in vain to free himself, it dawned on Michael that he was not going to be able to free himself. The only way he was getting out of here is if somebody found him and rescued him.

And so Mike, doing his best to stay calm, he pulled out his journal he had brought along for this trip in order to detail his closeness with God and what he was learning throughout this journey. And he began documenting what happened to him to include why he was in this boulder field, what he was doing when he got stuck, how he wound up in these sort of granite shackles, so to speak. He also very clearly in his writing was very much putting his faith in God to get him out of here.

He wrote in his journal on this first day, two hours into this predicament, "I am in your hands, Lord. I don't know what I may face." The idea being, "I don't know what's going to happen to me, but my faith is in you. I know you will help me through this." And so after writing this initial entry, Mike turned his attention to survival. Like, not trying to push the boulders off, but trying to survive amidst the boulders as long as possible.

And so he pulled out his blue sleeping bag and kind of wrapped it around himself to insulate himself. He got out his stove and there was some snow in reach and he began putting snow in his stove and melting it to create water. And he also pulled his tent flap over the top of him. I mean, he was basically setting up camp inside of these boulders. And that first night must have been absolutely horrifying. I mean, the temperatures dropped down to near freezing, even though during the day it was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

But that night, he's in this horrible position, just trapped with his own thoughts, just hoping and praying that, you know, God was going to get him out of here. Prepare to transform your beauty sleep with Blissy's revolutionary silk pillowcases.

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Service fees apply for three orders in 14 days excludes restaurants. The next day when Mike woke up, he wrote in his journal some more and he began detailing his biggest fears. One of them was potentially having to have his legs amputated if he got out of here. You know, the damage of losing circulation to his legs was scary. He wrote that he had food for at least a week, but he only had two quarts of water and there wasn't all that much snow around him left to melt and he was running out of fuel and

And so he was really worried about not having enough water, even though very ironically, he was like 25, 30 feet away from a lake, which he could have drank water from, but again, he's trapped to the ground. And so on the second day, Mike actually attempted to throw his water bottle, which he connected some rope to, to try to get it into the lake to capture some water and pull it back to him. But when he threw it, it was just short of the water. He could not get it into the water, so he couldn't scoop any water into his bottle.

And then when he tried to retrieve the bottle, as the bottle was being dragged towards him, it got wedged in some rocks. And again, he can't move, so he can't possibly fling it out of these rocks. And so he couldn't even get his water bottle back.

And so by the end of that second day, Mike's tone in his journal began to change. It wasn't totally negative yet, but he began talking about how, "Man, I wonder what's going to happen when I run out of water. I wonder what my urine will taste like if I mix it with Crystal Light." So it was kind of like he was joking about the fact that he was going to try to make his pee taste better, but it also showed he was beginning to realize just how serious the situation was.

Nobody knows where he is. He's completely off the beaten path. He has no idea if anybody even knows he's in trouble, and he's about to be out of water. The next day, so the third day of being trapped inside of these boulders, Mike would once again begin writing in his journal.

And his tone seemed a bit more optimistic, despite the fact that he has not solved, you know, this water crisis he's about to face. He's down to his literal last quart of water. But in his journal, he talked about how this whole trip he went on, this nine-day trip he had planned out, the whole point was to become closer to God.

And he felt like, "You know what? I've really done that in the past couple of days. What I wanted to achieve, having a really spiritual event here, it's happened like times a hundred being trapped here. I mean, this is the closest I've ever felt to God."

But you could just tell there was just an underlying sense that "I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to learn from this experience. I'm not going to take stupid risks anymore. I'm going to be a better father, be a better husband, be a better reverend. I'm going to make something of myself. I'm going to improve as a result of this suffering I'm going through right now." However, over the next few days that Mike continued to be trapped in these rocks with no help coming, his optimism clearly waned.

He began to write that he was angry with God. He wondered, you know, is this a punishment for something I've done? And he also thought, you know, maybe I failed God, and that's why I'm here. But it was just clear that Mike, who was this deeply spiritual person who absolutely believed in a higher power, how could he be in this terrible position and not be getting any sort of help from God? How could that be?

But unfortunately for Mike, his situation only got worse. On about day five or six, as Mike was laying wretchedly inside of this horrible camp he had built, he noticed that he had completely lost feeling in his left leg. Like, completely. It was a dead leg at this point.

And even though he knew by this point how bad of a situation he was in, this sparked a new, very real fear inside of Mike that he detailed in his journal. He knew his body was actually beginning to break down, and still there is no help, no divine help coming in despite all his prayers. There's no one coming to rescue him. He is all alone.

In fact, Mike would write in his journal something that practically brought me to tears when I read it first, and it just said, "So lonely, more than I imagined." I just can't picture what it would be like to be trapped out there. You're not hurt, but you can't go anywhere, and you're all alone, just slowly withering away. And your family, they're somewhere out there. They have no idea. Nobody knows. It's just unbelievably devastating. The mental torture this man went through is just out of this world.

But it just keeps getting worse. Day six, day seven, Mike at some point actually dropped his journal and because he can't actually reach it anymore, he just picked up whatever objects he had and continued writing on them, like his pocket Bible. And then also there was an instruction manual for a stove and he would write in the margins. And his writing just continued to get more and more pessimistic and sad.

He began writing about how intensely he regretted his decision to take the long route. He was totally setting him up for this situation. Nobody would have known where he is. And so he's hating on himself. He's still mad at God. Why aren't you here? Aren't you seeing how badly I'm suffering? I mean, this is a guy who's basically losing his mind with regret and anguish and just pure loneliness. I mean, this is horrible.

Then, on the seventh and eighth day or ninth day that he was stuck in these boulders, once again, Mike's writing on his random things that he wrote on took another turn. Not only was his writing becoming more and more illegible, because he's literally dying here. I mean, his body's breaking down. He's exposed to the sun all day, and then at night it's freezing cold. He's not having any water. He's drinking his urine. You know, he's got no food left. He can barely write. His writing begins to talk about his family and his children.

You know, at this point, Mike must have known the end is near. And so all he had was just the thoughts of his family. He began wondering, you know, what his kid's life were going to be like in the future. Because obviously the implication here is he knows he won't be there to see it. He'll be dead. And then in some of the last entries he would make, it was obvious that really Mike had turned back to God.

Now he was back to approaching God with open arms. He was no longer upset or questioning God's plan. He was just ready. He actually wrote in his journal, And then he wrote,

And then in his final entry, which must have been on the 10th day of his predicament, Mike's writing was basically completely illegible at this point because he's right on death's door. And even though you can't really tell what he wrote, at the end of this final entry, it says, It was like he was saying his final goodbye to his family.

Then Mike took off his wedding band and he placed it on the rock next to him because he knew once he died and decomposed, the ring would fall off his bones and be lost in the rocks below. And he clearly wanted his family to have that wedding ring. So he placed it on the rock and then he prepared to die.

When Brian the Hiker walked up to the sitting man he saw on this boulder, he realized almost immediately that that was Mike Turner because he had seen the missing person flyers before he came into the wilderness. And so knowing this is the guy they're looking for and knowing he couldn't move him, covered him up, and then he took Mike Turner's wallet, which contained his ID, and then as fast as he could, Brian the Hiker made his way back to the beginning of the trailhead and contacted authorities.

I will say it took Brian almost three days to contact authorities and he was going as fast as he could retracing his steps. So that really gives you a sense of really just how remote of an area Mike was in when he passed away. And then also it would turn out that Andy the dog who was leading that secondary search, you know, he wouldn't find Mike before Brian would.

But once they discovered where Mike had died and they checked the direction Andy was taking his family, it was obvious that Andy was heading in that direction. He was a faithful dog going back to save his owner. He just wasn't going to get there in time. And to close the story out, making it even more tragic, on the day that Mike left his wife Diane and his three beautiful children to begin this nine-day trek,

After he left, Diane received a bouquet of flowers in the mail that Mike had sent that he knew would arrive after he had left. And attached to this bouquet was a note. And the note was written to Diane. And it just said, Thank you for letting me live this adventure. Know that wherever I am and whatever I'm doing, I'm thinking of you.

A quick note about our stories: they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. If you enjoyed today's stories and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios' podcasts. There's this one, of course, the Mr. Ballin Podcast, and there's Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Full, Redacted, and Late Nights with Nexpo. All you have to do is search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts.

To watch hundreds more stories just like this one, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya.

Hey guys, Mr. Ballin here. You know how I tell strange, dark, and mysterious stories? Well, I've stumbled on some strange, dark, and mysterious medical stories that really are just as wild. Like there was a story about this woman who accidentally swallowed something that got lodged in her heart. There was a story about a guy where a tree grew in his lung. Or there was a story about this person who their skin turned bright blue. Or this town everybody started laughing uncontrollably that lasted for months. I mean, the list goes on.

And these are not urban legends. These are real mysteries that we dive into that have left doctors and scientists baffled sometimes for years. And so that's why I created Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, a totally separate show all about these wild mysteries of the human body. Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Want to listen to episodes early and ad-free? Well, join Wondery Plus or listen on Amazon Music with Prime.