WAVERLY, Tenn. – A hunter who fell from his tree stand was too injured to move for four days before he was rescued, his parents told a Nashville television station.
Mike Campbell went hunting Saturday near Waverly, about 55 miles west of Nashville, when he fell to the ground, breaking his back and several bones in his leg and foot, WSMV-TV reported after interviewing his parents at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.
He had left his cell phone in his truck and was unable to move to reach help. Uncertain he would be found before he died, his parents said he pulled out his wallet and placed it on his chest so that he could be identified.
"He saw the buzzards flying around and he said each day, they a got a little bit lower," said his father, Steve Campbell. He opened his mouth to try to catch rainwater to drink.
Campbell was rescued when a friend who lives nearby noticed that his truck had been parked in the same spot for several days. Jimmy Long went into the woods to check on Campbell.
"He was crying, (he) just said, 'Jimmy, I'm glad you're here,"' Long said.
Campbell was recovering at the hospital at the hospital during Thanksgiving.
"This is certainly a different kind of Thanksgiving," his father said. "It's the true meaning of Thanksgiving right now."
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