April 20, 2010 (Boulder, CO) – In December 2006 when professional multisport athlete and adventure racer, Danelle Ballengee, slipped on black ice and fell sixty feet on a canyon trail near her home in Moab, the odds were stacked against her survival.
With a shattered sacrum and severe internal bleeding, she crawled to a water hole and withstood two nights of frigid temperatures by doing crunches to stay awake and generate heat.
Fifty-two hours later, her dog and faithful running companion, Taz, led a rescue team to the scene.
Now her story has been documented in the television series, I Shouldn’t Be Alive. The episode about Ballengee, “Trapped in the Canyon,” is scheduled to air April 26 and 27 on Animal Planet. Check your local listings for times.
Ballengee, who grew up in Evergreen and attended the University of Colorado, is the ‘winningest’ endurance athlete in the world with several hundred victories in various endurance events. Her wins include national and world championships in the sports of skyrunning, adventure racing, mountain running, rogaining, snowshoeing, winter triathlon, triathlon, and duathlon.
Many in Colorado also know her from the many events she has organized and directed, from triathlons and running races in Evergreen to snowshoe events in Summit County.
