hey there everybody adam savage here in my cave and i've been doing some i've been
answering questions about mythbusters today uh submitted by tested patrons
and they were all sitting at my workbench and i just thought let's mix it up let me
move around the shop a little don't worry those of you who have the weaker stomachs like i do
um i'm not gonna like spin all over the place i'm just gonna
i'm just doing a little handheld instead of a stationary camera for this one the question is um
andres rosales wants to know grand canyon duct tape episode how dangerous was it parents it
looked dangerous um not that dangerous not that dangerous i mean you know when we had to do things
like rappelling down the chasm using duct tape rope um
we had a we had an extra safety for that one we added a safety even though we felt really
confident about our rope we just accommodated for the fact that if we were wrong we would die
so we added a safety that would have allowed the duct tape rope to break if it was going
to break but not kill us um and we did that on the show you know we tried to
we we tried not to film stuff that was super dangerous um because it's not fun it's terrifying
and i don't want to roll a roulette wheel as to whether or not i'm going to get home that day
but there was one dangerous part of duct tape canyon and it was um the escape on the boat so uh
if i remember correctly that wasn't even filmed in most of duct tape cannon can most
of duct tape canyon was filmed in the beautiful location of moab utah which is one of my favorite
places on earth and the lovely people at moab utah were just delightful the park rangers everybody we
dealt with there the location managers everyone was phenomenal um but there was a point at which
jamie and i sorry the lighting is terrible there that's a little better there's a point at which
jamie and i had to build boats and then we had to escape in those boats and finding the right river
in moab was tough there were some issues with that and we ended up filming that um on the american
river here in uh in northern california um and where we filmed was this beautiful remote location
um but it was a class five rapid it was like a real a real a real rapid um
and i was about to take my boat over the rapid and the safety divers were like okay
here's how this rapid goes you're going to go over this up here then you're going to fall off to the
left because that's where it's going to guide you and that's going to swing you around and do this
they said it should be pretty straightforward your boat should ride over this and then it'll hit this
you might bang into this thing you want to avoid that and go to there
and once you're there you're safe i'm like great and they said if you fall
off the boat in the middle of this rapid what we want you to do is to tread water
and you know wait for us unless you fall here in which case you don't want to tread
water you actually want to you actually want to lift your legs and like lie on your back
but you don't want to lie on your back over here you want to like to give me all these really
specific instructions from for my survival and it's basically like if you fall here do what do
x if you fall there don't do x or you'll die you have to do y don't do y over here
or you'll die it was like that kind of like needle threading so of course i went off the
boat in the worst possible moment and one of my favorite things about my body is its memory for
mission critical stuff because when i took the dive off that boat when i you know whoa
went off because i had talked it through and walked it through with the safety guys
i knew exactly where i was in the rapid and i knew that i was in the scenario in which i needed
to lift my legs up lest i get caught in a rock and pinned over and under the water by the rapid
i had to keep my legs from being a boat anchor for me and i successfully did that slid over
the big rock that was gonna harm me and down into the pool below and i was totally safe
i am grateful to my body for remembering those things at those key moments and to be clear i was
also wearing a safety vest um you know a a life vest so i was fine but it did feel like a little
touch and go there for a second and when these safety guys tell you do this here but definitely
don't do it there and do this there but definitely don't do that here good luck it's a little scary
that's about the most danger we were in which again still i submit is not a huge amount of
danger but thank you for asking that lovely question filming the episode in moab utah
wearing tuxedos for several days while traveling through some of the most beautiful landscape that
america has to offer uh was a real thrill it's one of my favorite episodes to film um thank you
so much andres rosales for your lovely question tested patrons keep submitting your delightful
questions and i will keep answering them thank you guys so much stay safe i'll see you next time