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13 tales of survival from around the world

These survivors experienced extraordinary circumstances; hurricanes, tornadoes, and avalanches, and lived to tell the tale.

Snow cave helps teen survive 2 nights in Maine wilderness

AP / Maine Warden Service
Missing teen Nicholas Joy was found alive after two harrowing days lost in Maine. The missing teen was found alive by a snowmobiler, and survived two nights by making a snow cave.

In early March 2013, 17-year-old Nicholas Joy of Medford, Mass., tried to find a shortcut through the woods while skiing and became lost west of Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine.

Nicholas's father, Adam Joy, knew his son was missing when he didn’t meet him in the ski resort parking lot as planned. The Sugarloaf ski patrol, the Maine Forest Service, the US Border Patrol, and other area rescue squads and volunteers searched for Nicholas for two days and two nights, though weather conditions were bad enough at night that the search had to be suspended.

Nicholas, recalling survival reality TV shows he’d watched, made himself a shelter out of a mound of snow and tree branches. He also tried to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together. Nicholas had no food or cellphone with him.

A volunteer firefighter who was not part of the official search parties found the teenager the morning of the third day. Nicholas was hungry, tired, and cold – but unharmed. 

“He did the right thing in building a snow cave,” Mr. Joy told The Associated Press. “Obviously he’s still alive to talk about it, so he made some good decisions.” 

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

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