Hello, survivalists. This is the Crux True Survival Story podcast. I'm Casey McIntosh. And I'm Julie

Henningson. And we are medical professionals with a passion for wilderness survival.

Join us as we explore real-life survival stories

and the critical moments that determine their outcomes.

Buckle up. Adventure awaits.

Let's dive into this week's story.

I'm about to share one of the most remarkable survival stories I've ever encountered.

An 11-year-old boy who became the sole survivor of a plane crash

in the San Gabriel Mountains and then had to navigate his way down an 8,600-foot mountain in a

blizzard. This is the story of Norman Olstad Jr. And what makes his story so compelling

isn't just his age, but how everything

his father had put him through in his young life suddenly became the skills that saved his life.

What hooked me about this story is that Norman was just 11 years old when a chartered Cessna

carrying him, his father, his father's girlfriend,

and the pilot crashed into the San Gabriel Mountains on February 19, 1979. But he wasn't just any kid.

He'd been trained for this moment his entire life without knowing it. Exactly. Norman had won the Southern California Slalom Skiing

Championship at age 11. His father called him Boy Wonder. And from the age of about three, he'd been

thrust into this competitive surfing and downhill skiing lifestyle. But here's the kind of complex part. Norman

actually resented a lot of this training. He spent years feeling like his childhood was being stolen

by his father's demanding adventures. And then those exact same skills became his lifeline.

His 2009 memoir about this experience,

which is called Crazy for the Storm, a memoir of survival, explores not just the plane crash and survival, but the relationship between Norman and his father, which made this miraculous escape possible.

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