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GREENSBORO — Luke Kaiser’s red T-shirt, the one he got last year when he worked at the UNCG bookstore, fit the moment perfectly.

In big white letters, it said, “Yes, I Can Help You.”

That’s just the message Jakob Holy needed.

“He was pretty amused by my shirt,” said Kaiser, a 19-year-old rising junior at UNCG. “When we walked up, he laughed pretty hard.”

When Kaiser and his two Forest Oaks friends showed up on the Linville Gorge Trail on Tuesday morning, Holy (pronounced Haa-lee) knew he wouldn’t die.

“Man, am I glad to see you guys,” Holy said, looking up at Kaiser, Greg Meyer and Nick Herr from his hands and knees. “My saviors.”

On Monday afternoon, Holy had broken his right leg and both feet and ankles jumping from a rock in the nearby Linville River.

When Kaiser and his friends found the 30-year-old Asheville man, he had been crawling for about three-fourths of a mile along the trail. He eventually hoped to crawl out of the gorge, a 12,000-acre wilderness area in Burke County known as North Carolina’s Grand Canyon.

At that moment, a hiking adventure turned into a life-saving mission.

“We decided our vacation was over,” said Herr, a 20-year-old GTCC student. “This guy was our priority.”

The three Greensboro students talked Friday about the rescue effort. Holy was hospitalized and could not be reached for comment.

Herr, Kaiser and Meyer arrived at the gorge about 3 p.m. Monday and spent the night at Table Rock, a popular camping destination. That night, a severe thunderstorm struck the area.

Early the next morning, the three headed south on Linville Gorge Trail, hoping to reach their next camping site about noon so they could spend the afternoon swimming in the river.

About 10 a.m., walking single file on the rugged trail, they crested a hill and found Holy in front of them.

He had on nothing but a pair of shorts.

“He was big time roughing it,” Kaiser said. “The unwritten rule is never go into the gorge alone.”

Holy, a former yoga teacher from the Czech Republic, had spent Monday afternoon jumping from one rock to another in the river. When he had gone about two miles, he planned to cross over to the trail and head back to the place where he had stashed his gear.

But he got hurt on his last jump, a drop of eight to 10 feet.

“He landed on the rock like Spider-Man,” Kaiser said. “He realized that something bad had just happened.”

Holy spent the night huddled under an overhanging rock in the middle of the river, fighting the pain and the raindrops and calling for help.

On Tuesday morning, he began crawling back toward the place where he had hidden his gear, including his cell phone.

He took off his sandals and used them as padding under his knees. With each advance, he took his hand and moved the shoes forward, then placed his knees in them.

“He thought maybe he could crawl out,” said Meyer, an 18-year-old rising sophomore at UNCG. “He didn’t have much of a plan.”

One look at Holy’s discolored feet and legs told Meyer and his friends that the man needed help quickly.

They gave him some Motrin for the pain, some dried cranberries and pineapple for energy, and some water, but they had nothing in their first aid kit to help his feet and leg.

Meyer tried to call for help but couldn’t get a signal on his cell phone. He sent out text messages instead, but didn’t know if anything got through.

Eventually, the three decided on a plan: Meyer would climb out of the gorge and get help; Kaiser would stay with Holy; and Herr would search for the injured man’s gear.

Meyer headed up Sandy Flats Trail, which had been closed for two or three years. About 500 yards up, he got a phone signal and called Burke County Emergency Services personnel. They told him to continue his climb and lead rescuers back to Holy.

Back in the gorge, Holy wanted to keep crawling. It was less painful than sitting still.

To help the process, Kaiser took a tank top out of his pack, cut it in two pieces and tied Holy’s sandals to his knees.

“That is so great, inventive Luke,” Holy told Kaiser. “You are so on the ball.”

Eventually, Kaiser and Herr persuaded Holy to sit at the bottom of Sandy Flats Trail and wait for help.

The climb had taken Meyer, an Eagle Scout, more than an hour. Rescuers decided to send two men, including a medic, back down with him. That took another 45 minutes.

By the time help arrived, they realized that Holy needed medical attention as quickly as possible.

Carrying him out would take eight to 10 hours.

“He would have lost life or limb or both,” said Maj. Ken Anthony of Burke County Emergency Services. “He would not have made it much longer.”

Anthony got permission to use a N.C. National Guard Black Hawk helicopter to lift Holy out of the gorge.

A second copter transported him to Mission Hospital in Asheville.

Before that happened, Holy and his three saviors said their goodbyes.

“I really appreciate it,” Holy said. “You guys are awesome.”

Knowing that rescue personnel had the situation in hand, Kaiser, Meyer and Herr resumed their hike.

They spent the rest of the day talking about what had happened.

“Something like that gives you an appreciation for the human spirit and what people can do when they are given a choice to live or die,” Kaiser said. “Seeing what he did ... we were astounded by it.”

Holy released a statement through the hospital.

“I am feeling OK,” he said. “I will have to have surgery, and I expect to make a full recovery.”

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com