Opinion

DR MARC SIEGEL: Bleeding, alone and hunted -- a downed colonel’s miracle survival

The weapon systems officer climbed 7,000 feet up a ridge, treated his own wounds and hid in a mountain crevice

By Dr. Marc Siegel Fox News

Published April 7, 2026 6:00am EDT

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Dr. Marc Siegel discusses US airman's miraculous rescue in Iran, medical miracles

Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel joins 'Fox & Friends' to discuss the miraculous rescue of a U.S. airman in Iran.

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How does someone — even a military hero with prodigious physical prowess and training — manage to survive approximately 36 to 48 hours in the mountainous terrain of southwestern Iran, likely without food and with little water?

How does such a person live with the high chance of having sustained leg fractures or other lower-extremity injuries from being ejected from a plane traveling at high velocity?

And how do Navy SEALs, Air Force Special Operations, Army Special Operations Aviation, search and rescue, and combat medics, flanked by 150 aircraft, possibly find him? As CIA Director John Ratcliffe said, it is like finding "a grain of sand in the desert."

The answer is a combination of great skill on the part of the rescuers, God’s presence, the airman’s deep faith, and the body’s survival mechanism, known as the "fight-or-flight" response.

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