November 22, 2007

Waverly, Tennessee - Mike Campbell's opening day of Tennessee's much anticipated gun hunting season opener turned to tragedy before it got a chance to start. Campbell was in his treestand on Saturday November 17, 2007 when he took a fall. With no safety restraint, he landed on the ground near the base of his tree.

To injured to make it back to his truck where he had left his cell phone, he laid there in the woods waiting for help.

That help did not arrive until Wednesday, 4 1/2 days later when Jimmy Long noticed Campbell's truck had been in the same place for days and went into the woods looking for him.

“He was crying, (he) just said, ‘Jimmy, I’m glad you’re here,’” Long said. "Mike was cold and hungry but alive".

Mike Campbell's parents, Steve and Sue Campbell, were at Vanderbilt hospital in Nashville on Friday waiting for Mike to come out of surgery. “He fractured his leg in two places. He fractured his foot, there’s three or four bones broke and also his back is broke,” Steve Campbell told channel 4 news.

“He saw the buzzards flying around and he said each day, they a got a little bit lower,” Steve Campbell said.