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The massive winter storm that hit many parts of the South last month also wreaked havoc on the “Duck Dynasty” crew.
“Duck Dynasty’s” Jase Robertson told Zach Dasher and Al Robertson about multiple near-death experiences the crew faced, describing dangerous conditions that pushed both their equipment — and their bodies — to the breaking point.
“I’ve named our experience the ice-pocalypse. When I left my house today, and it was nine days ago when this thing hit, I still had ice all over my steps. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t walk to my truck. Now it’s just all slippery … We spent eight days without power,” Dasher said on the “Unashamed” podcast this week.
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Jase Robertson recounts a crew member’s hypothermia during a dangerous ice storm hunting expedition. (John Lamparski/Getty Images)
Jase explained that he and a few friends were out in his Argo, an extreme-terrain vehicle, because one of them crashed his truck on the ice.
“Well, the ice is so thick that when we rounded a bend, we had to cut our way ’cause all these trees fell over there too. We did that for two or three days, and you had to have a chainsaw,” he said.
As fallen trees blocked their path, the water continued to rise beneath the ice. Then they saw thousands of ducks lift off near a blind, Jase recalled.
“Well, this water kept getting deeper, and I was breaking the ice, but we saw about 3,000 ducks get up in the vicinity of a duck blind. Well, now we lost our mind,” he said. “We’re like, we’re going out there, but all we have is this Argo and all of us are in it. And it only holds two people.”
Jase Robertson suffered chainsaw wounds and narrowly missed being crushed by a falling tree limb during the winter storm. (Denise Truscello/WireImage)
The Argo struggled as ice thickened, forcing crew members into the freezing water to clear a path by hand.
“And at some point, the water got so deep … [The Argo] goes from riding on land to kind of a propulsion,” Jase said. “But the problem was the ice was so thick it didn’t have enough power.”
“So, I said, ‘Well, y’all got to get out and break the ice,’” he added.
“They’re making a trail for me — I noticed that Cade started shaking violently,” Jase said, referring to a young Duck Commander staff member.
“He said, ‘Well, somewhere in breaking this ice, I’ve punched holes in my waders.'”
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Phil Robertson, Jase Robertson, Si Robertson and Willie Robertson from the A&E series, “Duck Dynasty,” in 2012. (A&E)
With icy water flooding in, a nurse in the group recognized the danger immediately, he recalled.
“And Burley, who is a nurse — that’s why I wasn’t worried, I thought, ‘We have a nurse’ — and he’s like, ‘You’re in the first stages of hypothermia,’” Jase said, as he appeared to refer to another Duck Commander member.
Cade said he thought he needed to go seek medical treatment, but Jase explained that they were so far out, there was nowhere to go, and they ended up sitting him in front of a fire and telling him to “every once in a while, raise up and shoot.”
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At the end of the day, he recalled telling his wife, Missy, “It was a really tough day. So we lost the truck. We lost an Argo … We had a guy have hypothermia. We thought he was going to die. He pulled through.”
Meanwhile, the danger didn’t stop there.
While cutting fallen limbs, Jase suffered a chainsaw injury he didn’t even realize at first.
The storm brought rare snowfall across Southern states, including Louisiana, Florida and Texas. (Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images)
“But I looked down, and I was like, it looks like I’ve been in a bar fight,” he said. “I mean, I had bruises and cuts … That chainsaw nicked my leg, and everywhere there’s a chain link, I had an open wound, and I didn’t even know I did it.” He later realized just how close it came to disaster.
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“It kind of made me realize, well, that could have been a lot worse ’cause I was right at the brink of that and didn’t even realize it,” he said.
Then came one final brush with death for the “Duck Dynasty” star.
He explained that in the area where his family leaves their garbage cans for pick-up, there was a fallen limb suspended in the trees that was “as big around as me,” and his wife told him that the trash collectors wouldn’t be able to go under it. He made the decision to cut it down.
“So, I cut the tree off of it and all that, got it all straight,” Jase said. “Go back to the house and we’re sitting there talking. Kawoom.” A massive limb crashed down exactly where he had been moments earlier.
Jase Robertson weathered out January’s massive winter storm at home with his wife, Missy. (A&E)
“I look — one twice as big hit right where I just was and just decimated the garbage can,” he said. “If I would have done this about 30 seconds later, I wouldn’t be here.”
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The “Duck Dynasty” family says the ice storm shut down daily life and forced them into survival mode, and that they spent days without power in frigid temperatures.
Last month, power outages across the U.S. surged past 200,000, according to data from PowerOutage.us, with widespread blackouts reported in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Louisiana State Police Senior Trooper Ryan Davis warned on FOX Weather that highways could remain icy and treacherous for days after major storms.