Trapped in the Everglades for Days | Fight To Survive | FD Survive

The merciless wild, the heartless seas. When nature unleashes her cruelty, could you escape? Could you survive? These are the true stories of outdoorsmen, confronted by death, armed with raw courage and a will to live. They are the ones who beat the odds and return from their own fight to survive. Vanishes in one of the most unforgiving hunting grounds in America. When stuff goes bad, you know, everything happens and it happens quick. Like 30 seconds. A one-day hunt in the Florida Everglades turns into four days trapped in a living hell. Really getting eaten alive. He outwits alligators and snakes, only to suffer the deadliest of all challenges. It'd be easier just to give up and die right now. Hunting, fishing, and camping, often on his own, in the rugged hills of upstate New York, from the time he was a boy, have taught Jamie Mosch the crucial lessons of wilderness survival. I grew up in the city, but I just loved the outdoors. So much of what I did mostly was just hunt and fish. But I was always comfortable in the woods. In 2009, Jamie trades the familiar woods and streams of his home state for the semi-tropical southlands of Florida. But with him, he brought his love of the outdoors, which is how he met Matt Pepler while out fishing one day. And we got to talking on the pier and fishing together and really hit it off. And basically, we had a really great friendship ever since that day. I ended up switching from being a big game hunter to doing what kind of hunting I could do, because in Florida, it's just a totally different kind of atmosphere from upstate New York. Where it was possible, we ran out. On November 16, 2009, Jamie meets two local hunters who offer to take him on a day of wild boar hunting. Invited me to go, and I'm so gung-ho about going out hunting, but I consider myself a very good hunter. So I figured I'd definitely be able to go out and get something. I assumed he was going to go out and have a great time with these other hunters. I was excited to hear how he did when he got back. Jamie gathers his gear and rides with them to their cabin deep in the Everglades. The plan is to get up with the dawn to hunt. The morning when we woke up, I was putting on my hunting clothes, and they went out to start the truck. What's up, guys? Ready to go hunting? Their truck wouldn't start, so they were going to work out in the truck. So I said, well, I'm no mechanic, and I'm going hunting. You guys can fix the truck. So they told me where to go. They said, walk down the road a mile or so and cut into your left. So that's what I did. At 9 AM, Jamie Mosh enters an environment like nothing he's ever encountered. The Everglades is a slow-moving river, 60 miles wide and 100 miles long. The dense sawgrass and razor-sharp palmettos provide habitat for wild boar, deer, snapping turtles, panthers, exotic giant pythons, and bull alligators. I had a 12-gauge Mossberg pump, compass. I had all my survival gear on my cell phone. I had everything that I needed. I had some water that day. So for the day, I was good to go. Jamie moves into the glades, putting miles between him and the cabin. It's a silent stalk through deep water and tangled vegetation, his mind on wild game. It was a hot day that day, so nothing was really moving. I saw some gators, saw some snakes, but I didn't see any pigs. Deeper and deeper, Jamie stalks, undeterred. The Everglades is 10 times more harsh of an environment than upstate New York. I thought I could handle it. It wasn't a big deal. It's nice, you know, being out there, seeing all the different things, being out in a different environment, seeing all the different animals, snakes, and the alligators. Tired from dealing with the difficult terrain, Jamie stretches out on a patch of dry ground for a short nap. He awakens to the unexpected. As it was dark, I figured, you know, no big deal, just walk out. My flashlight was dead. All my stuff was dead. Everything got wet that day. At night, you can't move because you're literally, you can't see in front of your face. So I was stuck that night. So I honestly didn't think it was a real big deal, you know? I've stayed out in 10 times worse conditions than this. You know, so I started a fire that night. Had a fire, and, you know, I slept next to my gun, and it was nice. With a broken compass, a waterlogged cell phone, and dead flashlight, Jamie is left with only his shotgun. He settles into his first night, surrounded by darkness and a vast marsh full of predators. But no amount of firepower and no amount of experience gained from years of hunting the placid woods of upstate New York would help him through the life and death ordeal awaiting him. 30-year-old Jamie Mosch has brought his New York State wilderness survival skills to the foreign territory of South Florida. Deep in the Everglades, he is far from the friends he has come hunting with, having endured an exhausting day of slogging through sloughs, ruining his compass, flashlight, and cell phone. Now, darkness has trapped him till morning. Got down to like 47 degrees or something, which is pretty cold. People don't know it gets that cold. Jamie's last chance to be located by his friends is to fire off the universal backwards distress signal. He fires three fast, three slow, and then three fast shots. One gunshot, you know, it seemed pretty close, but I was pretty sure where it came from. So I marked an arrow on the ground that night so I could walk that way in the morning, you know. When Jamie does not return to the cabin, the other hunters contact the police and report him missing. Now, Jamie's other friends and family know he's in jeopardy. I didn't really know what to think. Obviously, I was concerned, but Jamie did have a lot of survival skills. And my assumption was that he probably did make a fire and camped out there, and he'd make his way back out at daylight. I was up before the sun came up, you know. I was cold. I was ready to get moving. You know, my fire died off. Had no food, no water. So I was ready. I was very eager, you know, to get moving. So I followed the sun. As soon as it came up, I knew exactly which way to go. But thickets of sharp-edged palmettoes and tangles of vines prevent Jamie from being able to maintain a direct path. Sometimes I'd have to take detours to go through because it was so thick, you couldn't get through it. So you'd have to go in the water, and I'd end up chest deep in water that I didn't plan on going through. But I had to go through it to get to the next piece of land. It's now been over 24 hours, and Jamie Mosh is beginning to realize the magnitude of his predicament. In this environment, when you get lost, it's not like New York, where you can find a bend, where you have hills, or find something that you can pick out and walk towards, you know, so that way you have some point or direction to go towards, and you can keep following that direction. So this is flat. There's nothing to keep your bearings to know exactly where to go. With none of the usual landmarks common in his old hunting grounds to go on, Jamie is reduced to aimless wandering. He desperately tries to find some sign to point him back towards the hunting cabin. As the days progressed, I was definitely becoming more concerned. I felt that something must have happened to him. Jamie knows he's undergoing a role change. From apex predator hunting the glades, he has now become potential prey, vulnerable to everything from the charge of a wild boar, snake bite, being caught by a python, or the attack of a gator. But most of all, he is at the mercy of the environment. I'm walking through some water that's probably three foot deep. I have my rubber boots on. They go up to my knees, and I'm stuck in mud. The swamp mud is acting like quicksand. As I'm trying to take a step, my boots are coming off, and I'm just sinking further and further, but I don't want to lose my boots. Like an ice age animal caught in a tar pit, Jamie fights against the gluey mud. I'm sinking, I'm sinking, I'm sinking. Frantically, Jamie kicks hard to try and free himself from whatever is holding on to his boots. I'm mud up to my waist, you know, and I'm stuck, you know, and I'm sinking slowly in the mud. The tugging and kicking is churning the mud even more, and Jamie sinks faster. Even if he can escape drowning, he may still be trapped, immobile, for so long that other forces could take his life. I'm down up to my chin. The deeper Jamie Mosh sinks, the closer he is coming to dying alone and lost in the heart of the Everglades. Hunter Jamie Mosh, lost and alone deep in the Florida Everglades, is trapped in quicksand-like mud and is moments from death. I started sinking, you know, and I had my gun in my left hand, and I was hanging onto a branch with my right hand, trying to keep me up. I only had like 30 seconds or less, so I had to make a decision. Jamie needs both hands to survive. He tries to throw his gun to shore. Didn't make it to shore, of course. It landed in a swamp. Jamie's last hope to free himself is to slip out of his boots, pants, and gear. My fanny pack and my pants. So I was able to get out, slip out of the mud, and then there was three foot of water on top, which I was able to swim to shore to get out of the quicksand. The desperate plan works. Half naked, caked in mud, and unarmed, Jamie crawls from the deadly bog. Once I was on shore, you know, I took a breath and stuff. I wanted to get some of my gear back or get anything back. Kept going back into the water and just swimming on top of the water, sticking my hands like in the mud, trying to feel for anything. But I actually, I couldn't find anything. You know, the gun had sunk, my pants, this fanny pack, like everything was gone. You know, now I'm real concerned. You know, I'm in a tank top. I have no gear. I don't know why. I'm in a total environment where you don't want to be without shoes. You won't, you know, you don't want to be without a gun. You don't want to be without any of your gear. You know what I mean? And I didn't have anything. Jamie's physical predicament could hardly be worse. He is now three days without food or drinking water. His gun and gear, and even his clothes have been lost. All he can see is unbroken thickets of sawgrass and palmetto. Jamie's ordeal is mirrored by the anguish his friends and family are enduring. Knowing was definitely the hardest part. Did he have a fall and injure himself? Was he bitten by a snake? Was it an alligator? Jamie has not had anything to drink. He fears swamp-borne disease. Then luckily he comes upon a natural spring. You don't find too many rocks in the Everglades and there's like water in it. Crystal clear water. And every little mud puddle in Florida has these little guppies in there, little dullies, little minnows. Jamie uses his shirt as a filter to catch the guppies. I was eating the guppies, you know, just, you know, not very many, just what I could catch in my shirt. Caught a couple of frogs, ate them. As he drinks the spring water and eats the tiny fish, he realizes there could be a heartier meal. I have my hands and knees like slurping this water and it's like, you know, looking like things like came out. I thought it was like a snake like come out, like to bite my lip or something, you know? So I jumped back and ended up getting a stick and wiggling it in front of the hole. And when it came out, I ended up grabbing it from behind. So I ended up getting, I ate that. It's now four days into Jamie Moshe's ordeal. He's been slashed by vines and devoured by insects. I'm drenched, you know, from walking through swamps all day. I'm caught up to bugs, they're horrendous there. You know, I was covered from head to toes, there wasn't one spot on me that didn't have a bug bite. Really getting eaten alive. I've never seen anything like it. Wading through waist deep water, Jamie is on the alert for venomous snakes, pythons, and aggressive alligators. But the real danger is something unexpected that may halt the lost hunter in his tracks. I end up twisting my leg in some, in between some branches, I'm gonna pop my knee out. On top of all his other trials, Jamie now has to deal with a dislocated knee that may reduce him to immobility. He must take action. When you pop your knee out, it hurts really bad for the first 10 seconds when you do it. But after a half hour, it swells up so big and it's pretty much like it's broken. You can't do anything, you can't move it. And I knew for a fact, you know, if I don't pop my knee back in pretty soon, within a couple of minutes, it's gonna swell so big, I'm not gonna be able to pop it back in. I'm not gonna be able to move, I'm just gonna be stuck. Jamie will have to treat his injury himself if he hopes to keep walking his way out. He braces himself. He must force his kneecap back into place. Blinding pain shoots through Jamie. Without a gun, gear, or a way to make a fire, he faces having to hobble on. Worse than all, though, is the spreading sense of despair. I'm gonna go into this for days. You know, I'm just thinking, I'd rather just die, pretty much, than do this. For hunter Jamie Mosch, the Florida Everglades' 4,000 square miles of tangled vegetation have become a death trap, while his family and friends can only hope and pray. It was a very helpless feeling. All we could really do was talk to each other and try and keep our spirits up, and we had everybody here on the case, and there was so many people involved that he was gonna be found, I was sure of it. For four days, Jamie has been under siege from the environment. He survives insects, no food, a near-drowning, and along the way has lost his shotgun, gear, boots, and even his clothes. He's dislocated his knee and can only hobble forward. He tries to suppress dark thoughts. After I popped my leg back in, I sort of like got a second wind, you know, after I was feeling sorry for myself, thinking about killing myself, and, you know, thinking about this and that, just thinking about my mother and my friends, and thinking about everybody. It was like, you know what? If anybody can make it out of this, you can make it out of this. For his family and friends, whom he knows are waiting for him, he presses on. Then he sees helicopters flying overhead. Keep seeing these helicopters, and they're flying over top of me, but they're not seeing me. The helicopters are a beacon of hope that the search is on for him. Jamie knows that if he is going to be saved, he must aid in his own rescue. I end up climbing up this tree and sitting in this tree for a couple hours in the morning, trying to get a chopper to fly by that could see me. Of course, no helicopters fly by the whole time I'm up there. I could see them miles away, but none came by me the whole time. Jamie's efforts prove futile. Facing defeat, he climbs down from his perch. He's ready to give up. I find this hot spot, and I lay down, and, you know, it's like a little clearing. Then, a miraculous sound. You know, I'm hearing, Jamie, Jamie, and then I start hearing it get further and further away. Suddenly, I screamed out, help, and, you know, they screamed my name, and, you know, I said, yeah, you know, I'm Jamie, and they came over, and they found me. You know, I started crying, and I busted out in tears. You know, I was just so overwhelmed, you know, that I was found, you know. Base, we found Jamie. He's banged up, but he's alive. Drained of emotion, Jamie feels true exhaustion set in as his rescuers help him from the glades. He looked like he had walked out of a horror movie. He was cut from head to toe, cuts on top of mosquito bites, on top of cuts. It was, it looked pretty gruesome, but he was in good spirits and otherwise healthy. It was amazing to see him. It was amazing. I just, surreal almost, but a joyous occasion. And I was just so happy to see everybody, like my whole family, you know. I felt bad that I put everybody through what I did. They had to go through all this, you know. I know it must've been hell for them, just thinking that they lost their friend or they lost their child. This harrowing incident has given Jamie a new perspective on life. I definitely live each day with a little bit more love for life. I appreciate my friends and my family 10 times more because you really don't know what's gonna happen the day after the next. So you gotta tell your parents that you love them, tell your friends that you love them. You're gonna learn anything, you know, of this whole incident. Always be prepared, you know, and just remember anything can happen at any time. Jamie Mosch continued his life as an avid outdoorsman. In the spring of 2013, shortly after sharing this story, Jamie passed away suddenly. His incredible story of survival remains a testament to the adventurous spirit that guided his life.