In the confusion that followed, Dan dug frantically for more than four hours before discovering he had apparently been abandoned by his fellow climbers. He collapsed in exhaustion inside a cave that he was certain would be his tomb. “God was with me in that cave,” he says. “I remember shivering, struggling to keep my extremities warm.” As he approached what he was certain was his death, he recalls seeing the proverbial bright light. He believes that he met his guardian angel, who told Dan: “Follow me.”
“Suddenly, this large body bursts into the cave. It was Sasha. He engulfed my body and said, ‘We sleep together like brothers.’” Though Dan spent the night vomiting blood and having hallucinations, the body warmth provided by this experienced guide saved his life. The next day Dan and the makeshift band of stranded climbers maneuvered slowly through a minefield of hidden crevasses, determined to try to avoid a second night on the mountain.
As he and Sasha took turns leading the group, he came to understand the literalness of the words that had been spoken to him in the cave: “Follow me.” One wrong step could have plunged them to their death, but ultimately, all 14 of the climbers stranded with Dan made it down safely. Thirty-four hours after setting out, Dan re-united with his brother John. Twenty-five climbers had died in the storm in what is still regarded as one of the worst climbing disasters in history.
Dan regards his survival on Mt. Elbrus as a miracle, one that has caused him to refocus his professional ski career more on teaching and safety. As for his personal life, the experience of “essentially having died and come back” continues to shape him every day. “I don’t regard it as a singular event that happened, but rather as the beginning of a story that I am still living today — a life of deeper understanding, contemplation, and prayer.”
Still, Dan has discovered that a crash down the side of a mountain is not the worst fall one can have in life, and not all injuries can be repaired by orthopedic surgery. A decade and a half after the Elbrus experience, Dan was reeling in the wake of a painful divorce. A relative of his recommended that he attend a retreat, and he found himself at a Cursillo in 2005.
For Dan the experience was a profound re-acquaintance with the Catholic faith in which he had been steeped as a child. When Dan was growing up, his dad served as the physician for pilgrimages to Lourdes in France. Dan had made three pilgrimages and witnessed several miracles before he had graduated from high school. “The entire experience — the priests and nuns I met, the praying of the rosary, the cures I saw — really shaped my faith.”
What these pilgrimages had shaped in Dan as a child, Cursillo re-awakened. “Cursillo is like rocket fuel for your faith. Prior to Cursillo, I had never really seen my whole life within the context of my Catholic faith. This was the first time I saw my Catholic faith come alive in the laity. That spark solidified for me my many experiences from Lourdes and beyond.
“As a kid, I didn’t know how much I was going to need saving. I didn’t know I was going to be freezing to death in a snow cave in Russia. I didn’t know the pain of divorce. And yet Christ was with me through all of it. I never could understand how the divorce experience could ever be positive. Now I see that Christ can turn even that to good. I never would have seen that if I didn’t stay centered in the Church.”
Many years ago Dan left behind year-round travel and settled in Campton, NH. He is about to publish a third book, White Haze. Egan Entertainment includes his syndicated TV show broadcast in households across the country each week, and Dan is the video producer for the U.S. Sailing Team. He still tours from ski resorts to auditoriums to orthopedic centers, showcasing his passion for skiing. But today, Dan is just as likely to speak to a youth group, coach youth soccer, or lector at Holy Trinity Parish. He also helps lead a divorce support group and serves as Cursillo team member. He describes his life as “shifting from what a friend calls ‘success to significance,’ towards an understanding of the purpose of all that has happened. The whole idea now is how I can use all that I have experienced to positively affect others.”
Dan praises his parents who “remain so faithful in the practice of their faith. The fact is I’m as Catholic as my eyes are brown, and believe me I’ve tried pretty hard not to be. I’m now able to celebrate my Catholicism instead of run from it. When I speak to confirmation groups I tell the kids, ‘Hey this is not French or Math you are studying here. This defines who you are.’” The teens likely listen to his words, not because he has been to the top of the mountain, but because he has skied down it so fast. But having found what it really means to be saved, Dan tells them what he himself has discovered at the heights and in the depths of his life: “You will become who you are through your faith.”
Originally printed in Parable, the Magazine of the Diocese of Manchester. To read more articles in Parable, visit www.parablemag.com.
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