SEATTLE, Wash. (CNN/KIRO) — A warning to viewers: some of the images in this video are a little graphic.

After slipping on ice, a runner in Washington state breaks his leg while on a trail. He ended up crawling for hours until finally getting rescued.

Hours before help arrived, Joseph Oldendorf was in a fight for survival.

“My tibia completely snapped off. That’s why it felt untethered because it was loose off the leg,” he said.

He was miles into a run on the remote Duckabush Trail when he slipped on ice around 5:45 p.m. Friday and broke his leg, leaving him stranded with no cellphone service.

“I wasn’t counting on my phone ever working,” said Oldendorf. “I just figured this is my only chance — I’m going to crawl all the way there.”

Joseph crawled until his knees were past raw.

“My ankle was in such shape that I couldn’t — I had to be facing chest down for it not to be flopping out of alignment so I had to crawl on all fours and my knees — it’s a rocky, snowy, dirty, wet trail, and after a while, my knees were just raw, so I had the idea put my shoes over them so I would at least have some traction and a little bit of protection.”

After crawling nearly seven hours — Joseph said he was finally able to call 911 around 12:30 a.m. But he couldn’t let himself stop.

“I stopped to lay down and stay warm, thinking they might be there relatively soon, but I was way too cold, and there was no way I could do it without moving.”

He felt that if he didn’t keep crawling, he would die.

“He’s a lucky guy,” said Jerry Rule of the Brinnon Fire Department.

Rule was in the rescue group that made it to Joseph first around 4:20 a.m. Friday — after a four-and-a-half mile hike.

“I wouldn’t expect that he probably would’ve been found, to be honest with you, in my past experience,” said Rule. “After evacuating him by helicopter, we only ran into only two other individuals, and they were not going in as far as we were.”

“It definitely makes you respect nature more,” said Oldendorf.

Oldendorf, who plans to one day hit the trails again, said the thought of his family kept him moving through the pain — for all those hours.

“I don’t want my family to hear I died in the wilderness, I think it’d be unbearable,” said Oldendorf.

The trail is roughly 50 miles away from Seattle.