Petty Officer 1st Class Corey Baughman got more than he bargained for when he decided that a winter climb of Mount Fuji would be the perfect adventure before retiring from the Navy and shipping off to the States.

Baughman and Petty Officer 3rd Class Adam Andryc and Petty Officer 1st Class Dillon Mudloff were within 100 meters of the summit of Japan’s highest mountain earlier this month when they decided to turn back because of weather conditions.

Suddenly, a climber went hurtling by them from above.

“It was surreal,” Baughman recalled. “I thought for sure the guy was dead.”

For the next 24 hours, the sailors and some Japanese climbers risked their own safety to give aid to the man. At the end of the three-day ordeal, Baughman was headed home with more than the pride of summitting Mount Fuji. He spent the night in a freezing hut with the injured man, had to climb back up the mountain to retrieve his car keys and ended up with some frostbitten toes.

The sailors began their ascent at around 7:30 p.m. Dec. 9, Mudloff said, and hiked until about midnight. Their plan was to climb the mountain and snowboard down — one last “Hooyah” for Baughman, a 36-year-old veteran of the Iraq War, who was leaving the Navy so he could return home to Denver to care for his ailing mother.

They broke camp at 4 a.m. the next day and made a push for the 3,776-meter summit.

But the mountain proved to be too much.

Advertisement“Mother nature was angry that day,” Mudloff said Friday back in Sasebo. “It was out of our skill level. It was super steep, the wind was ripping. We didn’t have ropes and we’re not expert climbers. It was a bad day to be climbing.”

They got within 100 meters of the summit, but decided to turn around as conditions deteriorated. Baughman watched a group of hikers walking on a ridge at the summit, but he said they decided they would just as soon descend and kick back a few beers rather than risk their lives.

“We don’t easily walk away from the summit when we’re that close,” Mudloff said. “We admitted defeat.”

The trio decided to take some pictures and video at the highest point they had reached.

“It was definitely a good experience up until that point,” Andryc said.

Then, as the video camera rolled, a 60-year-old Japanese man fell from the ridge above. Mudloff estimates the man went flying by them at 40 mph, falling 500 meters in an instant.

As the sailors methodically began their descent to the fallen man, they ran into several Japanese hikers who had rescue gear.

The group reached the man 30 minutes after the fall. He was sitting upright, crumpled. Andryc thought he saw the man move.

“I gave him a courtesy shout,” Baughman said. “He moaned back.”

The men phoned for help, but they were told that a search-and-rescue helicopter could not fly up past 3,000 meters.

They feared the man might have spinal injuries, but they decided that if they did not move him, he would freeze to death, Baughman said.

The three sailors rendered aid to the man as conditions worsened. But as they tried to keep him warm, Baughman could tell that Andryc and Mudloff were starting to get hypothermia so he told them to get off the mountain.

“We were about to be a part of the problem,” Mudloff said.

Baughman stayed.

The injured hiker was placed in a sleeping bag and carefully lowered down the mountain.

“It was slow going,” Baughman recalled. “It was risky,” as the sleeping bag slid on the icy slopes.

Once they got below 3,000 meters, they called for a search-and-rescue team as darkness closed in. This time, they were told that conditions did not permit the flight of a rescue helicopter. Baughman decided to break into a hut and start a fire, he said.

After digging out a storage building and using his ice axe to break inside, Baughman found a can and lit a fire. They heated snow and put the man’s hands into the water to keep him lucid. The man was singing what sounded like cartoon songs.

“He wanted to be alive,” Baughman said. “He was a tough old man.”

Baughman’s phone died, and the hut floor caught fire from the heat of the can. After extinguishing the flames, he and the man rode out the frigid night.

At 8 a.m. Dec. 11, a rescue helicopter appeared.

“We made it through the night,” Baughman said with a smile.

He met with police when he got off the mountain. He had frostbite in his feet and spent the night in a hotel room. He was able to confirm that his friends, who were ordered back to Sasebo, were alive and well.

The next day, Baughman was so sore he could barely move, he said. But he had to hike back to the staging area where they had camped to get his bag with his car keys. The conditions were good, so he kept going.

“It was sort of a grudge match,” he said. “Me and the mountain had a score to settle.”

Baughman reached the summit. There, he found the injured man’s axe in the ice and his belongings, which he returned to his family.

“I felt like the mountain was letting me climb it,” Baughman said with a smile. “It felt nice to get on top.”

The Japanese man, whom police refused to identify, was flown to to a hospital in Kanagawa prefecture, where he is recovering from fractured legs and frostbite, according to a spokesman for Shizuoka prefectural police in Gotenba.

Baughman’s toes should be back to normal in six months, he was told. He returned to the U.S. on Monday.

The trio’s superiors in Sasebo were not surprised by the men’s heroic exploits.

“Knowing how strong in character they are, they would have done anything they could to try and save someone,” said Lt. Garrett Pankow.

Stars and Stripes reporter Chiyomi Sumida contributed to this report.