Peter Trapp survives one of Australia’s worst bushfires—and he believes CrossFit helped him do it.
The radio assured me the fire was still far away. Ten minutes later, the sky turned black, then red. I could hear it coming. Imagine standing next to a jumbo jet. Then I saw the flames: hundreds of metres in length and over three stories high. This was no normal fire. My land exploded into flames fuelled by 160-kilometer-an-hour winds. As I rushed to the fire pump, I felt calm and ready.
The pump didn’t start. Almost surrounded by flames, I fled into the house to get my two dogs. The house started burning. I put a blanket over myself and, clutching the hysterical dogs, went outside. The heat! Everything was on fire—even my driveway. I had to run through the flames. Rushing to my neighbor’s property, which was my only sanctuary, I could feel myself burning. At this precise time, 21 people were burning to death 100 meters up the road.
Twenty meters on, I lost all visibility. The smoke blinded me. I stumbled into a ditch and twisted my ankle. I could not find my neighbour’s gate. It was then I decided it was my time to die. But then a desperate desire to live for my family took hold, and all the memories of painful, gut-wrenching WODs came flooding back.
I vividly remember screaming to myself, “Come on! Go! Go faster! Push! Don’t give up! Go!”