I have had this feeling twice. Both times my overwhelming thought was “Wow, I’ve been an idiot.”
The article describes how that can happen: when your enthusiasm and risk exceed your skill (or luck). Also both times I was doing something I tell my students never to do, which is be alone in the back country. Your dog is not a substitute for another human.
It did, in fact, suck, though, not as much as I'd imagined I suppose. Car was totaled, I walked without a scratch, went to the ER where they handed me a scrip for 30 800mg Ibprophen and 30 Vicodin, and then told me I could call the doctor's number on the scrip if I needed more Vicodin.... I wound up just going home and taking a couple advil, went to bed, and woke up feeling like I, well, had totaled a car, took a couple more advil, and that was that.
Funny though, how, at our most vulnerable, there's an odd clarity about it, none of the day to day BS in the way, quite literally living in the moment, which may be your last.
This obviously depends on the characteristics of the dog, and in my case the dogs were not designer AKC fashion breed types, one has feral parents, and anyway had a preternatural awareness of things like other wild animals minutes earlier than i could.
Nah, bears generally don't like dealing with dogs. Although I do agree that leashing is a good idea.
Source: I live in Alaska.
Same experience here. I'm a beginner swimmer and got caught in a rip tide in Bali.
The thing was, it was terrifying yet so calm at the same time. Everybody on the beach continued to bathe, unaware, and a few metres away I was frantically but silently fighting for my life.
The helplessness is especially haunting. You exert this primal will to life, and the force of nature just brushes it aside.
Anyway, I made it out, spent that evening binging Youtube videos about rip tides, and have developed a healthy aversion to ocean water.
Seemingly at the same time, I had two thoughts: first, that if I stopped, I would only get colder, and second, that if I stopped, I would most certainly never start again. Super creepy to recall.
I have made camp in a blizzard, but never in such conditions and always with a human companion.
Second time I was on a trip with a group of friends in Atikaki park. In the almost three weeks we were out we never encountered another human. Anyway, part way through I just needed some time by myself and so after we made camp I just went off in a canoe by myself. No map — we’d emptied the canoes, but I wasn’t going to go far. No clothes but a swimsuit. But there were a lot of islands, there was some wind, and a current, and I was tired, and got lost. So I just pulled up and stayed put and luckily a couple of others came out in a canoe looking for me and found me after dark!