Schneider said rangers would like to see the plane recovered, and would work with the owner and his insurance company to get it salvaged.

Schneider said the survivors were lucky — they could have died three times.

"A plane crash, a swim in cold water and a night in the backcountry without any shelter or food," he said.

District ranger Steven Luckesen was more blunt.

"If these guys were a cat with nine lives, they just used up three of them," he said.

This is only the latest and most spectacular of many accidents for Gardner.

• As a boy, he fell out of the back of a pickup moving 40 miles per hour and skidded across the road on his bare back.

• When he was 8 years old, he accidentally impaled his stomach on a hunting arrow.

• While Gardner was driving to Ricks College, his truck slid off an icy road, leaving him with scars that are still visible on his arms.

• In 2002, he spent 17 hours in the Wyoming backcountry after his snowmobile dropped into a hidden lake. He lost most of a middle toe to frostbite.

• Ten days before the 2004 U.S. wrestling championships, he T-boned a car with his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He catapulted through the air and performed a front somersault as he struck the ground, then popped to his feet. He had only minor injuries.

• Two days later, he dislocated his wrist in a pickup basketball game.

Then there was the time he cracked vertebrae in his neck when the great Russian wrestler Alexander Karelin dropped him on his head. But that wasn't an accident.

"Just throw another log on the fire," Gardner said. "I wonder when these adventures are going to stop."

---

Contributing: Ben Winslow

E-mail: drob@desnews.com