After a few weeks of dating, you might expect to catch a baseball game, or maybe a nice dinner -- but you probably wouldn't plan to get lost in the mountains of California. Brandon Day and Gina Allen, who both call Dallas home, didn't expect to either, but their trip to Palm Springs took a dire turn when they found themselves stranded on a mountain in the desert for three days.
The new Weather Channel show SOS: How To Survive tracks their journey in its one-hour premiere on Aug. 20. The six-episode show tracks real-life survival stories with survival expert Creek Stewart demonstrating life-saving techniques.
In 2006, Day and Allen had been out on a few dates when Day invited Allen to join him on a work trip to California. While there, the pair took a tram to the top of the San Jacinto Mountains and lost the trail while seeking a photo opportunity.
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Three days of attempts to get off the mountain -- which climbers use parts of to train for Everest -- ensued. Interspersed with Allen and Day's account of their adventure gone wrong, including stumbling on the remains of another hiker, Stewart explains techniques like starting a fire with a camera lens, and skinning a rattlesnake to eat (that one's tough to watch).
"It has changed me and altered my life forever, but it doesn’t define me either," says Allen. "But I do like for people to know about it ... I hope it impacts someone in some way." Although it's still hard to relive the experience over a decade later, she says doing so reaffirms her faith again.
"It kind of humbles you, to remember you've been through something so tremendous," says Allen. "I believe it all happened for a reason, that I'm here for something bigger."
Besides the spiritual impacts, she also now carries strike-anywhere matches with her everywhere she goes -- you'll have to watch the episode to see why.
Her other advice to avoid getting stuck in a similar situation is to always tell three people where you are -- which Stewart, who credits his survival enthusiasm to the Boy Scouts, echoes.
"It’s the perfect story for the premiere because it’s so relatable," Stewart says. "Most of these stories are totally a scenario that anyone could find themselves in. [They have] so many applications to the average person."
Catch the episode on Aug. 20 at 8 p.m. ET on The Weather Channel. And Sunday's episode isn't the only one with Texas roots -- tune in again on Sept. 3, when the episode follows a couple who got lost in Big Bend National Park.
