Surviving a Ship Wreck
Speaking on the theme Purpose at Speaker Slam® in Toronto on Feb 26, 2020, Richard Hudson took the stage with a five minute story.
Transcript
the water is cold my kayak has just capsized in the frigid Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska I try and fail to write it and get back in I'm alone no one knows where I am but I know that I need to get out of the water soon before the cold takes me coordination away and I drown but how I see the shore about a half hour swim away and I withstand the cold water for that long I don't know but I know enough about survival to know that the odds are against me I don't want to die I'm 25 years old I want
to explore the world I want to have an interesting life and I can see my dreams and my life are about to slip away right in front of me I'm not to avoid panicking if I want to live I'm scared I'm really scared I'm also angry I'm angry at myself for having gotten myself into this mess and I take that anger and the fear and I turn it into fury so I can stay in control I Will Survive I Will Survive I Will Survive I kicked off my rubber boots so I can swim I'm now barefoot to stay alive I need to get out of
the cold water the cold gets to me as I swim towards that lonely Shore when I finally reach it frozen tundra is covered by a half an inch of snow and ice I try to walk but I just fall down I no longer have the coordination to stand instead I crawl up the beach gathering twigs and sticks to start off with my fingers are too cold and stiff to strike matches so I try putting the matches in my teeth and dragging the striker across the wind blows them out I try my cigarette lighters but my thumb is too stiff to run them and holding in
one hand and striking with the other doesn't work I will survive I tell myself I'll keep passing out from the cold then waking up and continuing to try getting the fire started after five long hours of trying failing passing out and trying again I finally get a fire going and I huddle beside that fire for the rest of the long dark cold night I will survive I tell myself when daylight comes I can see a cabin in the distance between the cabin and I are four small rivers and a mile and a half of snow-covered tundra I kicked off my rubber boots in the water
so I'm barefoot in bare feet I stumble my way across the frozen tundra my feet soon freeze as I cross the thin layer of ice on top of the ground my bare feet break through they're badly cut but because they're frozen they don't bleed and I don't feel them any longer finally I get to the banks of the last river the other side of which is the cabin and I see someone on the other side I won't live it sees me he rose over it gets me rose me back picks me up to the cabin and my recovery begins when I was a young child
I had severe asthma and it was not at all certain that I was going to live much my childhood when I was not in hospital we spent confined in my room and on the ceiling of the room there was a light and that light had a map of the world on it and I looked up at that light and it I longed to experience the real world I wanted to taste touch and smell a sea know the mountains the forests the deserts a fierce wind bitter cold hot Sun I just didn't want to be inside looking at a map of the world as that child
I decided that I would live to explore the world and that's what I was doing at the age of 25 in Alaska I was living since then I've lived in five countries traveled to nineteen more and sailed my boat from the Arctic to the tropics to Antarctica and I continued to live that's there is still so much to explore in this great world each day I choose to live because living to me my purpose for living is to explore
Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.