The CRUX: True Survival Stories
Kaycee McIntosh, Julie Henningsen, Bleav
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9 Days Stranded in the Nevada Wilderness; The Wrong Turn That Took a Life | E 240
On March 27, 2022, Ronnie and Beverly Barker were on a road trip they had made a dozen times before — from Oregon, heading south through Nevada toward Tucson, Arizona to meet friends. Their GPS…
The Grossglockner Case That Changed Alpine Law | Disaster Strikes E239
In January 2025, Thomas Plamberger and his girlfriend Kerstin Gurtner set out to climb the Grossglockner — Austria's highest peak — on a technical winter route they had planned together. What…
Lost Behind Enemy Lines for 2 Weeks: After Taking 30 Meth Pills | E238
Hosts Kaycee McIntosh and Julie Henningsen recount Finnish corporal Aimo Koivunen’s March 18, 1944 ordeal during the Continuation War: leading a seven-man long-range ski reconnaissance patrol in…
Frozen Solid at 3 Years Old: The Christmas Eve Miracle That Stumped Medicine | E 237
When three-year-old Brittany Eichelberger slipped out of her family's trailer in Elkins, West Virginia on Christmas Eve 1990, no one knew she was gone. She was found hours later, clinically dead in…
O Circuit Tragedy: 120 MPH | Disaster Strikes E236
In this Disaster Strikes segment of the Crux podcast, host Kaycee McIntosh recounts the November 17, 2025 tragedy on Torres del Paine’s O Circuit at John Garner Pass, where a forecasted cyclone hit…
30 Seconds to Escape: The Sinking of the Cynthia Woods | E235
Kaycee McIntosh and Julie Henningsen recount the June 2008 Regatta de Amigos disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, when the 38-foot racing sailboat Cynthia Woods lost its keel, punched a hole in the hull,…
42 Years in Siberia: The Family That Vanished From the World | E234
In 1936, a Russian man named Karp Lykov watched a Soviet patrol shoot his brother dead in a field — and in that moment, he made a decision. He gathered his wife and two young children, packed seeds…
Frozen in Time: Solving the Dyatlov Pass Mystery with Science | Disaster Strikes E 233
In February 1959, nine skilled winter hikers vanished in Russia's Ural Mountains during what should have been a routine expedition. When rescuers found their tent weeks later, it had been slashed…
3 Days Missing in a Ravine: The Boy No One Could Find | E 232
In July 2025, 13-year-old Cody Trenkel Jr. set out on a routine skateboard ride through his grandmother's quiet Missouri neighborhood—and never made it to his destination. What began as a normal…
99 Days in the Dark; The Overland Relief Expedition | E 231
In October 1897, eight whaling ships became trapped in pack ice near Point Barrow, Alaska — the northernmost tip of North America — with 265 men aboard and no possibility of rescue by sea until the…
80 Feet: A Via Ferrata Tragedy in Colorado | Disaster Strikes E 230
On September 20th, 2025, 26-year-old Colorado guide Olivia Copeland fell 80 feet to her death while demonstrating a rappel to tourists. The cause: an improperly threaded belay device—one strand…
3 Nights Trapped in a Canyon With a Broken Pelvis | E229
In December 2006, elite endurance athlete Danelle Ballengee slipped on black ice near Moab, Utah, fell 60 feet, and shattered her pelvis while unknowingly bleeding internally. With only eight ounces…
Sucked into the Sky at 33,000 Feet: The Ewa Wiśnierska Story | E228
On February 14, 2007, elite paraglider Ewa Wiśnierska launched from an Australian mountain for a routine training flight. Within minutes, she was sucked into a massive cumulonimbus cloud and carried…
The Orange Tent Guy, Balin Miller's Fatal Fall from Yosemite's El Capitan | Disaster Strikes E 227
On October 1st, 2025, 23-year-old Balin Miller stood near the summit of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park — glitter on his cheeks, orange tent packed, having just completed one of the most…
43 Days Lost in the Himalayan Winter: Trapped Without Food or Fire | E226
On December 22nd, 1991, a 22-year-old medical student from Brisbane crawled under a rock overhang in the Nepalese Himalayas and waited for help. He had a sleeping bag, two chocolate bars, four books,…
Nineteen Days in the Idaho Wilderness: They Did What They Had to Do | E 225
On the morning of May 5th, 1979, four residents of Estevan, Saskatchewan boarded a small Cessna bound for Boise, Idaho on what was supposed to be a day trip. By that afternoon, the plane was down in…
The Body Recovery: Fatal Cave Dive at Bushman's Hole | Disaster Strikes E 224
In this episode of the Crux podcast's Disaster Strikes segment, hosts Kaycee McIntosh and Julie Henningsen delve into the harrowing story of Dave Shaw, a technical diver who tragically perished while…
Trapped in Quicksand: 2 Hours vs. 6 Days | E223
Quicksand isn't a movie prop. It's real, it looks completely normal, and it happened to two men in the past three months — one in a frozen Utah canyon, one in a Florida mud pit. Austin Dirks is an…
Fourteen Days Down Under: The Beaconsfield Mine Rescue That Captivated the World | E222
When a 2.3 magnitude earthquake struck the Beaconsfield Gold Mine in Tasmania on ANZAC Day 2006, seventeen miners were underground. Fourteen walked out. One didn't survive. And two men — Todd Russell…
The Vanishing at Pendleton Mountain | Disaster Strikes E221
Silver Plume, Colorado — population 130 — became the setting for one of the strangest unsolved disappearances in Rocky Mountain history. In the summer of 1988, sportswriter-turned-novelist Keith…
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The CRUX: True Survival Stories has published 241 episodes since February 2021, covering topics in Documentary, Society & Culture.
The CRUX: True Survival Stories is currently highly active with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 33m.
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