December 21, 2017
From Lauren Davis, WVLT.TV
Sometimes doing an ordinary thing can make you realize just how fragile life can be. After a near-death experience on Wednesday, December 13, Billy Clabough said he feels lucky to be alive.
Clabough thought he was going out for a routine hunting trip, but things quickly took a turn into the unknown when he fell and broke his ankle.
“I heard it pop and I didn’t want to look at it. Anytime I moved the foot would flop,” he said.
He finally made it down to his boat and back to the boat dock. Luckily, a group of utility workers happened to be there that day, and Billy waved them down.
“He was in shock. He knew he was in a bad situation,” Pike Electric worker Gerald Craft said.
The temperature that morning was in the 20’s. Clabough recalled shaking from the bone-chilling cold.
His body temperature had dropped to 96 degrees. Matthew Fauver helped rescue Billy and said, “He was numb from the cold. He didn’t look good at all.”
They gave him dry clothes, used their blankets to block the wind and called 911.