He Kept His Nose Above Water Long Enough to Live

A lucky Australian man credits a yoga pose with saving his life. Daniel Miller was working with an excavating machine in a dam on his remote property Wednesday when the ground gave way. Trapped beneath the machine's roll bar, Miller sank into the muddy bog up to his nostrils. The 45-year-old managed to keep his nose above water for at least two hours until help came. Miller tells Sydney's Daily Telegraph, via the BBC, that he arched his back to breathe and kept "my head up above water using my arms—I guess it was the cobra position." (See the position here.) A neighbor eventually heard Miller's cries for help and called for assistance. As a firefighter plunged into the muck, rescuers used hydraulic equipment to drain the dam and free him.

"He's been extremely lucky to survive," a police rep tells 9News. Authorities estimated Miller was stuck for two hours, but Miller's wife, Saimaa, writes on Facebook that it was more like five "with the weight of his excavator on his back, and with the boggy dam ground below him slowly slipping away." She adds that luck had "nothing to do" with her husband's survival. "It was literally sheer mental strength and determination to survive that got him through." Miller was flown to a hospital and treated for hypothermia and minor back injuries. (People are "losing their minds" over goat yoga.)