Walk in the Woods: Submerged in Icy Water
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What led David Dwyer to search for his wife Kelly in the woods?
It's February the 13th, 2011. In the woods of New Hampshire, just outside the town of Hooksett, the beam of a flashlight weaves through the trees, making fleeting incisions in the darkness. Ranks of densely packed evergreens appear in its glare, their trunks slender and pale, their slumped boughs stiffened with frost. 43-year-old David Dwyer, flashlight in hand, staggers through the snow, his eyes scouring the slivers of shadow between the pines. His voice resonates through the dark forest, echoing the same two syllables, Kelly. Eventually, David emerges into open space, a circular clearing covered in a blanket of pillowy white. Though it's not immediately obvious, this clearing is in fact a pond, frozen over and buried by snow.
David stands at the pond's edge, his breath fogging the frigid night air. He points his torch beam towards the opposite bank, where the black mass of the forest stands out against the darkening sky. David calls out again. Once the echo of his own voice has faded, he listens, his ears pricked, his senses sharpened to a fine point. And then he hears something. It sounds like a wounded animal ensnared in barbed wire, a throaty, feral groan. His pulse quickening, David directs another yell into the dark void that surrounds him. Again he waits, and again.
Whatever that noise was, it didn't sound human, but it's not like I'm making a noise and then a howl is, you know, calling back, or a coyote's howling at the moon. There was a rhythm, something is answering. Me yelling, Kelly, something is answering back. Something, someone.
The sound is primal, an expression of pure animal distress. But it also seems to be answering him. Whenever David shouts Kelly's name, the sound comes back. David starts inching his way along the edge of the pond, following the direction of the sound.
I just kept walking and trying to follow this animalistic noise. And enough time went by that all of a sudden my flashlight picks up this black hole in this frozen white landscape.
David stares. It looks like a blot of ink on a pristine page, a little circle of black against the surrounding white expanse. a hole in the ice he trains the flashlight on it and there staring out from the hole surrounded by freezing black water her face like a ghost is david's wife kelly her eyes look like you would think if you can envision an animal carp in a trap
frantic, wild, animal-looking eyes. And she opened her mouth, and that noise that I had been hearing came out of her.
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 husband and wife David and Kelly Dwyer. On a winter's evening in New Hampshire in 2011, David is at home in his study when he notices that Kelly hasn't come back from her walk in the woods. Strapping on his snowshoes, he heads out to look for her.
My mind is thinking, it's odd that she's not here. It's odd she's not on the path walking back, meeting me. So something is now wrong.
But the situation is even worse than David fears. Because unbeknownst to him, Kelly isn't merely lost or injured. She is unconscious, barely clinging onto life, submerged up to her neck in freezing water.
And I remember screaming, screaming, screaming for help.
How did Kelly end up submerged in freezing water?
And that's really all I remember. That's my last memory of that day.
As Kelly slips into a hypothermic stupor, David will have to perform heroics to reach her in time. How will he get her out without risking his own life too? What will be the consequences of Kelly's hours spent trapped beneath the ice? Can she, quite literally, come back from the dead? I'm John Hopkins from the Noisa Podcast Network. This is Real Survival Stories.
It's the afternoon of Sunday, February the 13th, 2011. In a sprawling area of woodland about a mile outside the small town of Hooksett, New Hampshire, Kelly Dwyer happily picks her way along a path through the evergreens.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What led David Dwyer to search for his wife Kelly in the woods?
0:03–4:49
2
How did Kelly end up submerged in freezing water?
4:49–14:19
3
What emotional and physical challenges did David face during the rescue?
14:19–18:38
4
What were the critical moments when Kelly was found?
18:38–28:00
5
How did the emergency responders react to Kelly's condition?
28:00–36:14
6
What were the medical efforts made to save Kelly's life?
36:14–45:58
7
How did Kelly's recovery process unfold after the incident?
45:58–47:34