Snowmobiler tells tale of survival

SUPERIOR (CNN/KARE) - A Wisconsin man got lost while out joyriding on his snowmobile and spent 50 hours in sub-zero weather.

For a northwoods boy, when the snow comes calling, you answer it with a sled.

"I just love it, be out on the river, and just (sounds) phew," Friebe said.

Craig Friebe was tinkering with his snowmobile on a frigid night back in January and took it out for a spin to see how "she'd run."

"Having fun snowmobiling up the Nemadji River." 

He ran it far; at least 30 miles from home. It was a great night - until he couldn't retrace his tracks.

"I'm getting lost; I'm going up these other ones trying to find my way back, then I'm out of gas. So there I sit in no man's land."

All alone, no phone, no food and no water.  He started walking.

"All I could hear was that north wind howling."

He walked all night searching for signs of life, climbing the rocks, desperate. After at least 15 hours, he saw some lights.

"I saw a bar on top of the hill, all the neon lights lit up, Miller Genuine Draft, so I'm getting up there, pulling myself up that hill, trying to get up to that thing, and I come up over the edge, nothing but woods. No bar, nothing, just wind blowing in my face."

Craig was hallucinating. There was no bar, not even close.

"Nothing, not even a dog bark."

He had to get warm so he grabbed his lighter and built a fire in the embankment next to a cave he dug with his hands.

"Then I'd fall asleep, and you know, I was almost huddling and cuddling the fire, I'd fall asleep, and then I'd burn my face on it."

That fire cost him his gloves and his socks. So he started walking again. He'd been in the 47-degrees-below-zero wind chill now for more than 30 hours.

"Walking I'd have my hands in my crotch and in armpits, and walking like this, because everything on me was just about frozen except my chest, and I've got my arms inside here, running, running, running, running."

He had to walk near open water more than once.

"I'd just pray to God up there, look at the moon, and say let's do this; I'd just boogie across as fast as I could."

But as night fell on his almost third day out there, he began to fade.

"I'm dying. I'm slowly shutting down I can feel it, just all cold, and starting to feel cold all the way through." 

And he also began to pray to the only angel he's ever known.

"I was calling her name, come Sunday, I was yelling for her."

"I paced the floors back and forth, and I kept asking him, you know, like give me a sign, Craig. Show me where you're at," said Friebe’s wife Becky.

That yell must have lit a fire one last time because Craig found a roadway and a snowplow driver found him, in the fetal position there waving for help. That was nearly five weeks ago.

Craig lost eight toes to frostbite and caught gangrene on the back of his right foot. It would be enough to scare that call of the ride out of anyone. Anyone, but a northland boy like Craig.

"I love being out there. You only live once."

Friebe is expected to recover but likely have to learn to walk again.