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How does someone — even a military hero with prodigious physical prowess and training — manage to survive approximately 36 to 48 hours in the mountainous terrain of southwestern Iran, likely without food and with little water?
How does such a person live with the high chance of having sustained leg fractures or other lower-extremity injuries from being ejected from a plane traveling at high velocity?
And how do Navy SEALs, Air Force Special Operations, Army Special Operations Aviation, search and rescue, and combat medics, flanked by 150 aircraft, possibly find him? As CIA Director John Ratcliffe said, it is like finding “a grain of sand in the desert.”
The answer is a combination of great skill on the part of the rescuers, God’s presence, the airman’s deep faith, and the body’s survival mechanism, known as the “fight-or-flight” response.
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In the end, SEAL Team Six commandos extracted the officer, and he was taken first to a U.S. military medical facility in Kuwait, where he will receive high-level care, including wound management, hydration, nourishment and any orthopedic interventions needed. He will no doubt recover — a clear-cut medical miracle.
This weapon systems officer, an Air Force colonel with survival and evasion training, reportedly climbed 7,000 feet up a ridge and remained hidden there for nearly 48 hours in a mountain crevice.
President Trump, during a press briefing on Monday, said that the airman “scaled cliff faces, bleeding rather profusely, treated his own wounds.”
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During his time on the mountain, he could have used bandages and tourniquets to help stop the flow of blood, but he would also have soon needed water to replace the lost fluids. He is reportedly a man of deep spiritual faith, which clearly helped him to survive, and when he finally made radio contact, he sent the message, “God is good.”
He was spotted by the CIA with a camera from 40 miles away. According to the president, “They kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn’t moving. And they said, ‘You know, probably wrong, but we’re seeing something moving.’ This is a vast mountain, vast, thick with bushes, trees. ‘We see something moving 40 miles away.’ It was the head of a human being,” the president shared. “‘I’m telling you, it’s moving.’ And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot, stood up, and they said, ‘We have him.’”
As Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said at the press conference with President Trump, “in that moment of isolation and danger, his faith and fighting spirit shone through.”
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It is unclear whether the downed airman received help from local residents who are opposed to the Iranian regime or if he toughed it out on his own, but either way, his survival constitutes a faith-driven medical miracle.
The way human physiology responds to threat clearly played an essential role. At a time like this, the body kicks into fight-or-flight mode, also known as an acute stress response, with an outpouring of stress hormones — epinephrine, norepinephrine and cortisol.
Here’s what happens: The heart rate, blood pressure and rate of breathing increase. There is a release of energy as the body shunts blood toward the muscles and away from the skin. The person feels increased alertness, and all the senses are heightened, which creates a survival advantage.
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Though a person can go several days without food, water is essential for organ function, and dehydration can quickly lead to organ failure, especially in the presence of ongoing bleeding.
It is unknown how much water the downed colonel had, but it was unlikely to be sufficient for someone with substantial injuries.
Survival under these circumstances is clearly a medical miracle. The team that rescued him were angels sent by God. As further details are released in the coming days, they will provide the exact narrative by which God, great military prowess and personal fortitude all came together.
Clearly, the colonel’s spirit to survive overcame both the enormous physical challenges and the looming danger he faced inside Iran.
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