Trail Things

I didn't know if I had any internal injuries or not so I realized that there was a possibility that I might not make it through the night. As the hours passed though, I felt like my chances of survival were getting better. I spent a lot of time praying and a lot of time thinking about my wife and kids. I knew that one of my buddies or one of the RCMP would have called my wife and told here that I was spending the night with a broken leg at the bottom a a cliff and I felt pretty terrible about that.

Eventually it started to get light... now my concern was the weather. From my perspective it was pretty socked in and I didn't think a helicopter would be able to fly. So I wasn't sure if Search and Rescue was going to be attempting to rescue me over land or by air.

As the morning progresed I began the see patches of blue sky, which got my hopes up. And then around 10:30 AM I first heard, then saw the big yellow and white Search and Rescue helicopter come flying around the mountian. I've got to say that has been one of the happiest moments of my life!

The helicopter couldn't land where I was at, so they landed on a saddle about 1/2 a mile away. The rigged a cable underneath the chopper and dropped a man and some safety gear at my location. I was very happy to see him. He put my leg in a sling and put me in a "screamer suit" which I soon figured out how it got it's name. They slung me out to the saddle where the chopper had originally landed and put me on some kind of special stretcher and flew me out to Mcbride. The helicopter crew were Search and Rescue from Jasper National park and are specifically trained in mountain rescue. The typically rescue climbers. They are a top notch bunch of guys and I thank them for rescuing me. I ended up spending between 18 and 20 hours on the mountain with broken bones before being rescued.

I ended up in the Mcbride hospital and they wanted to send me to Prince George for surgery but I was able to talk them into sending me to Edmonton instead. My left knee was destroyed, totally dislocated and most of the ligaments wrecked. My lower left leg also has a nasty fracture around the ankle with damage done to the ankle joint. I went through lots of MRI's, CAT scans and X-rays. After a couple days they did surgery to install pins and external fixaters to secure my left leg from my ankle to my hip. I spent about a week in the external fixaters while waiting for the swelling to go down so they could perform further surgery. Then 2 days ago they figured the swelling had gone down enough that they could do the major surgery. They secured my fractured ankle and lower leg using plates and pins and did major reconstructive surgery on my left knee creating new attaching points for ligaments and installing new ligaments using donor tissue.

I haven't left the hospital yet since the accident but I am recovering well from my surgeries and happy to be alive. The doctor says that I may be able to walk using crutches soon posibbly by then end of the week and then I will be able to go home.

In closing here are 3 things that I have learned or would have done differently or could have been improved on in this incident:

A)The most obvious thing for me will be to use a lot more caution around cornices. I've been sledding in the mountains for 15 years and thought I had left an adequate safety margin, but I was wrong and it is a mistake that has cost and will cost me dearly.
B)A satelite phone would have helped with quicker response. In this case It may not have made a huge differnce but in other cases it might.
C)If I would have had an FRS radio on me when I went over the cliff it would have made communication a lot easier and safer (not sending guys to the edge of the cliff to communicate.)

But as I said, I am happy to be alive, and I would like to thank everybody who helped out in my rescue.
Oh and go give your wife and kids a big hug.
Later,