Easy as falling off a cliff
No real point to this story. Just sharing a small encounter I had with a mountain.
The day started off like most of our tamer outings; bright, sunny and crisp; full of possibilities and fun. My (then) wife, Malu, and a few of our friends were excited about the trip we were going on. We'd been planning the day on and off for a week. Not too complicated. It was just going to involve hiring a few canoes, paddling upriver a couple of hours, have a picnic, then paddle back.
So off we set. We headed to an area past the outer north-west fringes of Sydney; to the Colo River. Having made it that far (no mean feat, because we were being driven by Paul, who lives his Formula 1 racing dreams behind the wheel of the kombi we were in) we got our canoes and headed upriver with our lunches stowed in Ross' canoe. After an hour-and-a-half of paddling, we got into a bit of skylarking - splashing each other with the paddles. Ross, being the dextrous fellow that he is, managed to capsize his own canoe; along with our lunches. So we paddled to a grassy bank to see what we could salvage. Luckily, a lot of our lunches were packed pretty tightly and we managed to keep most of it. [Lesson here: even if you're not going on any great adventure on water, keep your food in water-tight containers and away from clumsy people. :clown:]
As we sat on the bank thinking of a suitable punishment for Ross, we thought we'd climb to the top of the mountain across the river from us. It didn't look hard and we didn't need any climbing gear. It was almost like a bunch of steep stairs leading to the top. Even our wives/girlfriends thought it was easy enough for them, so we tackled it after lunch. The last thing I remember was paddling across and beginning the climb at the base of the mountain.
I woke up three days later in hospital. I still don't remember what happen. Nobody saw me fall. Nobody understands how I could have fallen considering my previous climbing experience (I loved rock climbing and have done lots of climbs before). What we knew was that I headed off to find a more challenging route. What we could piece together was that the only way I could have fallen was if the rock gave way or if I put my hand on a wee beastie (snake or spider). We've got more than our fair share of venomous critters here in Australia. I don't think that I had the presence of mind to choose between being poisoned or falling off, but I previously had a very close encounter with a brown snake before (but that's another story), so I probably just got so startled that I let go.
My cousin Jim was the closest to me and he said he heard a noise like a sack of potatoes hitting the rock. Always the flatterer is young Jim. (I always imagined that if I ever hit the ground in any way, it would ripple like it does in The Matrix, then be followed by an intense shock wave. Reality can be disappointing. At least I didn't scream like a little girl. I didn't call out at all.) He came to look and found me lying down the slope. I had fallen about 20 feet onto a rock, narrowly missing its sharp crest, then continued rolling down the rocky slope. I was unconscious. He called the others to work out what to do. Malu was there, shaking me, asking if this meant that our trip to Europe was off. Just kidding. She was pretty distraught. Jim was trying to calm her down and concentrate to work out what to do. She's a nurse and Jim was trying to get her to settle enough so that she could apply some first aid. Paul ran to his kayak and paddled downriver to where he could see a farm house. Nobody was home so he broke in to use the phone. Not long later, the rescue helicopter was there with a swarm of news helicopters. I guess there wasn't much other news happening that day.
The rescue guys put me in a stretcher, which would have been a task because I weighed about 90 kg (almost 200 lbs) at that stage. When they began to winch me up to the hovering chopper, the guy controlling the guide line lost hold of it and the stretcher swung uncontrollably. I was nearly impaled on a branch (lucky I was still out of it) but he dove for the line and swung me out of the way. The trip to the hospital was uneventful. I guess they figured that I'd had enough excitement for the day! Hat tip to those rescue guys.
I suffered a supposed broken rib (which the doctor and I am dubious about, but I'll come back to that later), a partly torn ear, lacerations, bruising, loss of memory and concussion. It took a while to recover and I had a fear of heights after the accident (I can't understand why). A week after I went home I got another X-ray and that didn't show any broken ribs, which is why the doctor was dubious that I had broken any in the first place. Malu and I did get to our European trip and I forced myself to go up to high places to overcome my fear of heights. It took a while, but I'll be damned if I let a phobia beat me.
I guess there is a lesson to this story. Accidents can and do happen even when we don't expect them. Maybe even because we don't expect them. Maybe we become a bit lax and don't plan for them. Knowing first aid will always be useful - not that it could have helped in my situation - but it would in many others, especially when a long way from help. Have at least 2 people in your party knowing it, and have at least 2 first aid kits.
Anyone got a similar story? Thoughts about what could have been done better?
