Don’t follow the tracks | Campfire Stories with MrBallen

Hey guys, I'm back by the fire, and I have another awesome story to share with you. Today's story is this epic survival story, and I mean the story itself is truly unbelievable, but I'm telling you, the twist at the end, basically how this person was able to survive,

you will not see coming. Great plot twist, great story, I know you're gonna like it. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right campfire, because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week.

So if that's of interest to you, please invite the like button to come join you at your campfire. But when they show up, just immediately push them into the flames and then leave. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story. Around 10 a.m. on March 18th, 1944, a 26-year-old Finnish soldier named Aimo Koivunen sat around

a campfire with a group of other soldiers inside of the Arctic Circle in Northern Europe. They were very deep into the wilderness in this forest that was covered in several feet of snow and Ayemo was melting a pot of that snow over the fire so the group could drink some tea. And at the same time that Ayemo was doing this, even though it was kind of relaxing to be sitting here, Ayemo, I mean his whole body was basically aching. Number one, it was, you know, five degrees outside and this

was also the first time that he and the other soldiers had stopped to rest in about two days. They had been on the move the whole time. So Aimo and his squadron were all members of the Finnish military and at this point during World War II they were actually allied with Nazi Germany., during World War II, they were actually allied with Nazi Germany. Not because, you know, they were Nazis. They were not. But because Finland and Germany shared a common enemy, the Soviet Union. Right now, Aiemo

and his squadron were in an area called Lapland, which used to belong to Finland. But four years earlier, the Soviet Union had invaded Finland and ultimately forced Finland to cede this land to the Soviets. But now, during World War II, Finland wanted to get their land back. And Germany was helping them do that. And so IMO and his squadron were in Lapland on essentially a reconnaissance mission. They were there to try to figure out sort of what the Soviets were doing in this part of Lapland on essentially a reconnaissance mission. They were there to try to figure out

sort of what the Soviets were doing in this part of Lapland and how many Soviets were out there, again, in this particular part of Lapland. However, Aiemo and the others had spent the past two days skiing all over the place in their area of operations, but so far, they hadn't seen any Soviet soldiers

or any Soviet bases. But, you know, for Ayimo and probably for the other soldiers that he was with, I mean, this was ultimately a good thing. They were trained for combat, but they didn't necessarily want to come across Soviets and have like a full-blown shootout. In part because the Soviets were just a bigger, more well-equipped military. And, you know, they were also more advanced. And so if they got into a gunfight with them, who knows what would have happened.

And so even though Iemo is like sitting here feeling very sore and very tired as he melts his snow, he was ultimately feeling kind of grateful that this reconnaissance mission had proven to be pretty low-key. However, just as the water began to boil, Aimo and the other soldiers heard the unmistakable sound of machine gunfire coming from somewhere that had to be nearby. And so immediately, Aimo and the others, they jump up, forget what they're doing, and they're just, they're looking to see where this gunfire is coming from. But then before they could

even make sense of the situation, Ayimo's lieutenant yelled like, hey, get ready, get your guns. And so they all scooped up their weapons. Ayimo, he's picking his weapon up. And as he looks up, he looked off in the distance, maybe a quarter mile away, and he was shocked to see an entire pack of Soviet soldiers bearing down on them. They were literally skiing down this mountainside right nearby, and they were obviously shooting their machine guns, not in random directions, but right

at Aimo and the other men. They were clearly being attacked by these Soviets. Now Aimo and the other men have clearly been trained for this. This is literally why they're out here. They are soldiers. They're ready for this type of encounter. But for a moment, when Aimo sees this overwhelming force that's descending on them, they're clearly outnumbered, like this is going to end badly. All Aimo had in his head was just this overwhelming feeling of just terror.

He was the oldest of six children, and when he first enlisted in the military, he had promised all of his little siblings that he wouldn't get hurt. He would come home. He would be okay. And now he knew that wasn't going to happen. Like, he was going to get killed. He just knew it. But Aimo, after sort of breaking out of this initial thought, he looked over at his lieutenant, and his lieutenant looked terrified too.

But he quickly composed himself and yelled for Aimo and everybody else to flee. Just moments later, Aimo and the other Finnish soldiers were on their skis, skiing as fast as they could away from the Soviets down the backside of this mountain, just doing anything they could to survive. And as Aimo is skiing away, he can hear the sound of gunfire ricocheting off trees, zipping by his head, like he's thinking, at any point, I'm going to get hit, or one

of my teammates are going to get hit. There's nothing we can do. We just got to go as fast and as far as we can. And so he's skiing, and actually, Aimo was at the front of their formation. So he's actually leading the pack. And so really it was his job to kind of create tracks in the snow that the others could follow in behind. It was easier for them, but it meant he was expending a lot of energy, basically pushing all the snow down

as he was making his escape. And as much as he wanted to maintain that position and do this for his teammates, to continue to make tracks here, it was so exhausting. And also like when you're in combat, you have this unbelievable adrenaline rush

that sometimes can lead to a massive crash of energy. And it was like he had this huge rush of energy, and now it's like he's collapsing. Despite the need to escape here, it's like his body just cannot go any faster than he's going. And so before long, it's like he found himself slowing down

and his teammates are zipping by him because they can't stop. The bullets are flying fast. Like their only hope of survival is just to keep on going. And so Aimo knows that basically, if he can't keep up, he's dead. But his body, it was just he couldn't go any faster.

He was slowing down. He was going slower and slower. He could hear the sound of the gunfire getting closer and closer and he's thinking about his siblings and how devastated they're going to be to find out that he was killed in this war. And so slower and slower he's going. The sounds are getting louder and louder behind him. And he sees the last of his teammates pass him and he sees the last of his teammates pass him and he sees them just kind of drift off down the mountain into the the white abyss beyond and they're gone. He's alone and he just can't keep up

and then finally he just loses control of his skis. He veers off to the side, he starts tumbling down the mountain, smashes into a tree, and he passes out. When IMO woke up, it was light outside, but he had no idea how much time had passed. He also really had no idea how he was even still alive. Like, what, did the Soviets just decide not to kill me? Or did they not see me? Like, what happened to my teammates? Like, what's going on? He had a lot of questions. But in addition to feeling confused about the whole situation, he also had this really distinct other feeling. He had this immense sense of being alert, like hyper alert, more than really he had ever been in his whole life.

It's like he could hear and see everything at like a 10 times level. It's like, oh my God, I know everything going on around me. I'm totally aware. So with his like hyper-vigilance that he suddenly was having, sort of out of nowhere, he began to, you know, take stock of his situation. Right away he, you know, was able to see that he's alone. Like the Soviets are not nearby. He's not like being held captive. And again, his comrades are nowhere to be seen. So he's alone in the middle of the wilderness in the Arctic Circle, but he also could see that, okay, well I still have my skis, so I can still get around.

He still had his boots on, he still had his equipment on, like he had the things he needed to survive. He even had his compass still, which had been in his hand, but he hadn't lost it. And so he had a way to navigate, and he had his weapon still, and so he's thinking, okay, you know, like, the situation's bad, but I have what I need to survive for some time. And he also realized that sort of amazingly, despite clearly crashing as a minimum and smashing into this tree that he was laying near, despite that, he didn't feel any pain in his body. And he didn't appear to have

any injuries. So he's thinking, you know, what a miracle here. That the worst thing that's happened here is I've basically been abandoned and I'm effectively lost, but it could be worse. And so Imo, after, you know, taking stock of his situation, he eventually stood up and he looked off into the distance and he saw maybe six or seven miles away, there was smoke up on this mountain off in the distance.

And he immediately recognized that that mountain was actually what appeared to be the rendezvous point for he and his squadron if they ever got separated. And so he's looking out at this mountain and seeing the signs of potential life over there. And he's thinking, oh my gosh, those are my teammates.

That's where they've gone. They've gone to the rendezvous point. All I need to do is go to that mountain." So Aimo scooped up his backpack and picked up his gun and whatever other equipment he had on the ground, and then he started skiing towards this mountain. And for a while, he just kept on staring up at the smoke coming off the mountain, making sure he was going in the right direction. And as he got closer, he was nearly positive. He could see that in addition to the smoke, he could see what appeared to be little lean-to tents on the mountainside,

which were telltale signs that those were Finnish soldiers. That's how they set up their tents. So he's thinking, this is it. Like, I'm going to be saved. I just got to get there. And he had so much energy, maybe because he was so close to being rescued or something, but he felt like this huge surge of energy. It was like nothing could make him tired. And then finally, Aimo got close enough to this campsite on the side of this mountain that he actually could see faces.

He could see the other soldiers and they were his, you know, Finnish comrades. They had clearly gone to the rendezvous point and they hadn't seen him yet. And so here he is, you know, feeling like full of energy. He's barreling towards them and he starts calling out to them. You know, he's thinking they're going to be like totally shocked that, you know, anybody would just come out of the wilderness

towards their campsite, let alone IMO, who they must have assumed by this point was dead. Also, he's thinking, I don't want them to shoot at me, thinking I'm a Soviet soldier, so I better get their attention. And so he's yelling out for his comrades. And at some point, one of the men, they turn and they see Aimo.

And their reaction is not what Aimo wanted. Their reaction was being really shocked, grabbing their weapon, and shooting at him. And before long, all these soldiers, all of his comrades, are opening fire on Aimo. And Aimo's like, come on, I'm warning you,

what are you doing? But he's already going so fast, skiing so fast, that his only move was to basically ski right down the middle of their camp and just go to the other side of the mountain. And so he literally skied through this campsite

with all of his comrades shooting at him, who miraculously missed him so he doesn't get shot somehow. The bullets are whizzing past his head and he's thinking, oh my gosh, they think I'm a Soviet. Come on, I'm calling out to you guys. I'm not a Soviet. But he barrels past them and then after he's pretty far away from this campsite, he's yelling back to them, like, guys, it's me, it's IMO, what are you doing? But they still, they're yelling and they're shooting in his direction.

And so he had no choice, but to just keep on skiing away from them, away from safety, or what he believed was going to be safety. And so on he went for hours and hours, just skiing and skiing away from this ambush ambush if you will and the whole time he's thinking like what happened Even if they shot at me at first couldn't they have figured it out that like I'm one of you like wouldn't you have realized?

That eventually as I skied right through your campsite. I have the same uniform as you have the same weapon as you you recognize me Like what was that and so he has no idea what happened, but he's also he's like, how do I have so much energy? Like how am I able to do this? I've been skiing for hours and hours and hours. I've been shot at so many times. Like this is, this is surreal.

What's happening? Like what is going on here? And so IMO just continued skiing for hours and hours until it was abundantly clear. He was not in shooting range. He didn't hear the sound of any gunfire. Like he's safe again. Still very confused why this was even happening, but he's safe. You know,

the sun's gone down. And so he thinks like, okay, I need to stop. I need to make camp. I need to regroup. But it was at this point that he's thinking to himself, like, I haven't eaten anything, I haven't had any water, I've basically been at a full sprint, like skiing at a full sprint here for basically practically the whole day. I've had multiple near-death experiences, I smashed into a tree during that initial skirmish, but I feel great. I feel like I have more energy than I've ever had in my whole life. And so he's just caught by like, how am I able to do this?

Is this what it's like when you're in a true survival situation? Like your body just goes into like overdrive or something? Like he couldn't understand it. And so he's standing there, like, basically telling himself, you really need to stop. Even though you have the energy to go pretty much indefinitely, you need to stop. You need to make a fire, you need to have food, you need to have water, you need to rest. But it was like he was forcing himself to do these things. He didn't feel compelled to do them. It was like, oh, that's right, I need to do human stuff. And so that's what he did. He stopped, he built a fire, he made

some food, and he's not hungry at all, but he's eating the food, forcing himself to, he's having some water. And then he said, okay, I'll rest. And then in the morning, I'll figure out what to do next. But he lays down to go to sleep and he should have been completely exhausted, but he wasn't. He couldn't even sleep, like not at all. He just laid there completely wide awake as the wind and sleet and snow whipped all around him. And he just laid there. Again, feeling great but just not tired at all. The next morning when the sun came up, Aimo had not slept at all, but still he was able

to get up, put his skis on and get his stuff and continue skiing, basically in the direction that he believed would bring him back to Finland. And as he was skiing, you know, he's thinking to himself, it's kind of interesting because when he first got attacked by the Soviets, it was like his mind was clear, but his body failed him. Like his legs got so tired from trying to cut those tracks in the snow that he fell off and crashed. And that sort of led him to this position. But now, for whatever reason, it was like his mind was delirious. Like he couldn't keep his thoughts straight, but his body was like a Terminator.

Like he just kept on going no matter what. And so he just kept on skiing, almost like without even thinking. His body was like on autopilot. And so he skied for hours and hours and hours just in this one direction that he sort of loosely believed would bring him back to Finland. And the whole time he's skiing, he didn't see another soul.

He is out in the middle of the Arctic Circle. There's no more Soviets. There's no more teammates, nothing. He's just out in the middle of the wilderness. And realistically, he didn't know if he was even remotely going in the right direction,

but he was just gonna go. But that night, as he's still just skiing in a straight line, not stopping, sort of unbelievably he looked up ahead and he saw somebody. The first person he had seen since, you know, the ambush at the campsite. And even more unbelievable is the person he saw was one of his teammates. It was this guy named Matty. He was a comrade of his. They had been together

when the Soviets had first attacked. And so immediately IMO's thinking like clearly Matty got separated as well and it's just serendipity that we have wound up at the same place. And so IMO he skis right up to Matty and he's waving him down. He's so relieved to see him. And Matty when he looks over at IMO, he doesn't shoot at him, but he sort of tells him to like, be quiet, like calm down. And he kind of beckons him over. And when IMO comes up next to Maddie,

he has all these questions like, what do we do? Where are we going? But Maddie just tells him like, just to be quiet and then gestures to lay down on the ground. And so IMO doesn't really know what's going on here, but he trusts Matty. You know, Matty is not shooting at him. That was a good sign. And so the two of them just laid in the snow. They laid down right there.

And for the first time in what felt like a very long time, Ayemo was able to feel tired enough that when he closed his eyes, he did drift off to sleep almost right away. When Ayemo woke back up again, he was not lying down in the snow with Maddie. He was instead standing up on his skis, skiing down a mountain, like on a mission. Maddie's nowhere to be found. And on top of that, he didn't have his backpack and he didn't have his gun.

Had no idea how long he'd been skiing for. He didn't know like where he was going. It was like he went from passed out to skiing, just magically skiing. Now, realistically at this point, IMO is thinking to himself, clearly what's happening here is I'm like hallucinating

or something, because how is it possible that I was just with Maddie laying on the ground sleeping and now I'm here, like it didn't add up. And so as he's just sort of mindlessly skiing along, he's like telling himself like, this is you dying. Like this is you losing your mind before you die. Like your mind is all over the place. Your body's still going for reasons he didn't really understand. Still at,

you know, full tilt, you know, full energy. Didn't know why. But at some point that's going to give out and you're just going to die. Like that's what's going to happen here. And so Ayemo's only hope was that between now and when he died, that hopefully somebody would see him and save him. He knew it was an outside chance, but at this point that's all he had. And so on he skied. No weapon, no backpack, no supplies. You know, he's basically operating on no sleep and he's just skiing. And for days and days he doesn't stop. He can't believe his body is keeping up as well as it is. His mind is like totally gone. But he is just going for days and days and days. Doesn't run into anyone. But then

one day, again days later, he's skiing along and magically almost in front of him appears this building. He can't tell if it's necessarily a military outpost or civilian. He doesn't know if it's Finnish or German or Soviet. But he knows even in his totally fractured mental state that attempting to go in that building and hoping there are people in there that will save him, even if they won't, even if they kill him maybe, that is a better outcome, a better choice than doing what he's doing right now, which is the sort of endless ski to his death. And so Iemo starts skiing faster and faster towards this building, just like full reckless

abandon, fully committed to this is my rescue or this is my death. And as he gets closer, he sees sort of unbelievably that this is a military installation and it is a German military installation. And remember, the Finnish are allied with the Germans at this point, and so this is a safe place for him. And so he's so relieved, he can't believe he's gonna potentially survive this thing. He takes off his skis and he starts running towards the front door of this building.

But before he gets to the front door, he steps on something and then there was a loud bang and he's thrown into the air and comes crashing down. And when IMO opened his eyes and sort of took stock of what had happened, he didn't feel any pain, but he looked down and he saw his foot was just a bloody mess. There was literally bones poking out of his ankle. Like he could see clearly he sustained a horrible injury and he must have just stepped on a landmine. But IMO determined to get into that building. he pulled himself up, again sort of channeling

this unbelievable just endurance he had been feeling the past several days that he'd been out here. He stood up and on one foot began hobbling his way towards this installation. And he finally gets to the front door of this German military base and he grabs the doorknob and he's about to open it when there's another banging sound and he's thrown again into the air. He had stepped on another landmine. And he comes smashing down and he doesn't die, he doesn't feel any pain, but he looks down at his

legs and he sees his other leg that was not injured a minute ago is now also mangled. So now he can't even stand. He's incapacitated. And on top of that, even though he's near this military outpost, he turns and looks at it and now that he's a little bit closer and he's sort of looking more, you know, intentionally at this building, he realizes it's abandoned. Like this isn't going to save him. He's trapped. He's in the middle of nowhere and there's no one here. And so at this point, Imo just said, you know what? It's over. Like, I'm gonna die. And so he literally just crawled his way over to this

nearby ditch, let himself roll into it, and he just waited to die. He just knew it was over. But he didn't die. For days he just laid in this ditch, like unable to die. He wanted to die. He wanted this to be over. Like what else is he gonna do? Who's gonna save him? But he just watched the Sun come up and set. Go up, set, over and over. He lost track of how many days he was just laying there, again, bleeding profusely, like grievously injured. He hasn't eaten anything.

He hasn't had any water. Like, he can't believe he's still alive. You really can't believe it. And then as he's laying there, you know, one of these days, he's just in this ditch. He looks up during the daytime, and he

sees what looks like a plane flying overhead. Now, at this point, IMO is in very bad shape. I mean, he's alive, but it's not going well. And he knows that, you know, so he doesn't know if he's hallucinating this or what. But he felt like it was real. But after watching this plane circle overhead for a minute, IMO was almost certain he heard the sound

of this plane landing nearby. And then a couple of minutes later, he could have sworn from the ditch, you know he can't really see anything, he could hear the sound of people speaking in Finnish, his native language. Again he didn't know if he was hallucinating or not but he sees this this head poke over the top of the ditch and it was this young man, this young Finnish guy, and he's looking down at Aimo and Aimo's

looking back up at him and then then a second later, Imo was being pulled out of the ditch. Later that day, Imo found himself laying in a hospital bed inside of a hospital in Finland. Like the man and the plane, all that, not a hallucination. He really had been rescued. And once he was at the hospital, it turned out he weighed just 94 pounds. He was also badly burned and frostbitten, and both of his legs were very badly mutilated and mangled. And his heart

was beating at a staggering 200 beats per minute, despite the fact he's just laying in bed, not doing anything. And even more crazy was they couldn't actually get his heart to slow down. It just kept beating at this crazy high level. Now, at first, I mean, doctors and nurses and all the staff were like really shocked by IMO's condition. Not really just that he had survived, but again, like his heart rate. Like it just seemed like, dude, how are you alive right now? Like your heart can't beat at this

level for this long without eventually killing you. But after they spoke to IMO and had him recount the whole ordeal of him being out, you know, getting shot at and lost and the whole thing, they learned one really specific thing that explained the whole thing. When IMO and his, you know, Finnish comrades were initially ambushed by the Soviet soldiers, they decided to flee. But Aimo, he was having such a hard time physically keeping up with the other

soldiers. Like he was just getting so tired from trying to break the tracks, and then he fell off, and he's thinking to himself, if I don't find a way to keep up, I'm going to get captured or get killed by the Soviets. And so he's desperate. And so before he ultimately crashed down the side of the mountain from exhaustion, he tried something to try to give himself some energy to try to make this escape. He pulled out these special military rations that he had been issued, along with everybody else in his squadron. They were all given these

rations. And the reason you take these rations is to give yourself some energy. And so he takes these rations and he's thinking, this is gonna do it. This is gonna give me the boost I need to get out of here and make the escape with my teammates. But the rations didn't work. And so he did sort of completely fall off.

He was so tired to the point where he literally tumbled down the side of the mountain, you know, his teammates, they skied off, and he smashes into a tree and he passes out. However, when IMO woke up, one, he was amazed he had not been captured or killed by the Soviets, but he's realizing he's all alone and like, what's gonna happen to me? And then he starts to feel like, man, I just have a lot of energy, you know, I can see and perceive things on a level that I couldn't before. Well, that's because the military rations had kicked in, and now he had like this abundance

of energy. And it allowed him to basically ski indefinitely without sleeping, without having water, without food. He gets blown up twice, his feet have been blown off basically. He's laying in a ditch dying, but he just can't seem to die. I mean, the guy should have died, like, several times. But these rations did their job. They gave him all the energy he needed to survive this crazy, crazy two weeks in the wild. Well, the military rations, they're called Pervitin.

And this drug, I don't know if it's still given to soldiers now, but probably not, because effectively what Pervitin. And this drug, I don't know if it's still given to soldiers now, but probably not because effectively what Pervitin is, is just pure crystal meth. And so in essence, IMO survived in the wild for all this time because he was on just a pure meth-fueled rage. He was just completely high for two weeks and it saved his life. One thing to note about Pervitin is it does have two distinct downsides. One, it is incredibly addictive, and two, it creates really, really intense hallucinations. And so very likely he did not come across his own battalion, who then opened fire on him. He did not come across Matty, you know, his teammate

out in the wild who told him to lay down. And who knows, we're not even sure if the military installation he saw was real. Like, very likely all of that was just in his mind. However, the landmines, those were real. Somewhat unbelievably, IMO would make a full recovery, and he would go on to get married, he would have nine children, and he would live to the age of 71. And as grateful as he was to the drug that did save his life, he never took Pervitin again. Thank you so much for watching. Let me know what you thought of today's episode in the

comments. And remember, we have hundreds of videos for you to binge right now. But if you're looking for a recommendation from me of that one video that's worth your time, well, it's this one right here. So give it a watch. So give it a watch. All right, until next time, see ya.