Former Marine Survives Without Food and Water for 4 Days

It took a day for the Exton man to pull himself along the carpet in his Exton home to the phone to call police for help

His nickname in the Korean War was “Grenade.” 

Former Marine Lance Corporal Rick Johnson says he survived Paris Island and shrapnel wounds. But it was the Wednesday before Easter he wasn’t so sure about -- Johnson survived four days without food and water in his Exton home.

“Next thing I knew, I was picking myself off the floor there.  I was trying to get up,” Johnson said.
The 81-year-old says he tripped going into his living room and got entangled in the legs of a table and couldn’t move.

“Trying to get up…trying to get back on my feet and I couldn’t get up,” Johnson said.

Hours morphed into a day, then two.

“In and out for hours…TV was on but I couldn’t see it. I could hear it, the Travel Channel happened to be on.”

He got free of the table but with no food or water now in almost three days, he could only lay on the floor and it took a day to pull himself along the carpet, losing the skin on his back to go 15 feet to the phone to call 9-1-1.

Rick says it was his marine and war experience that did it but he had doubts.

“Yeah, I did.  I thought ‘this is ridiculous, if you’re not getting anywhere you’re gonna die!’”

When the paramedics from the Uwchlan Ambulance Corps came through the door on Saturday before Easter, it was over for the tough kid who grew up in Germantown.

“I don’t think I’m tough. You’ve gotta have a lot of strength to do what you did. Independent, you know? Nobody’s going to do it for you," Johnson said.


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