Trail Things

This story IS NOT about Tom Imm. I found this in another forum and wanted show what happed to this guy when he did not his radio on him. Sorry for the confusion on this.

I'm sure quite a few of you heard about the accident I was involved in on February 4th. To sum it up, a cornice gave way underneath me and I fell approximately 265 ft. I broke my leg and destroyed my knee in the process and ended up spending the night at the bottom of the cliff. This thread was about the incident from the perspective of the other guys involved.

I finally got dial up internet access in my hospital room so I thought I would take the time to tell the story from my point of view. You would think that the University of Alberta hospital would have plenty of phone lines or maybe even high speed internet but apparently not. I was 9th on the waiting list to get a private phone line in my room, and it took 9 days to get it hooked up.

Anyways I'm still recovering in hospital so I've got lots of time on my hands so here's my story:

The morning of Feb. 4th Marcuso, SylvanLaker, myself and a few others met up with Alberta Boy and his crew and followed them up to their secret riding area. I think there was about 10 people in our group in total. We spent a few of hours breaking trail up to the alpine and playing in a few areas on our way up.

After we had been up in the alpine for a little while the sun came out and the conditions were pretty much perfect... deep snow, blue sky, no tracks and few riders.

I pointed my sled up a large open ridge, wanting to see what was over the top. As I neared the top I realized that there was a sharp drop off on the other side. I turned to the left to ride parallel to the ridge with about 6 to 8 feet between the right side of my sled and the cornice. At that instant the cornice broke away underneath my sled and I fell. I immediatetly thought the cornice breaking would cause a huge avalanche and that I would be buried. I could feel myself smashing off of rocks and I had no idea how far I was falling. I really thought I was going to die, either due to avalanche or due to hitting rocks.

I came to rest about 265 feet below the spot where the cornice broke. I was conscious the whole time. I knew right away that I had broken bones in my left leg. After a little while I could here my buddies yelling down to me but they had no way of getting down to me.

Thankfully I had a big back pack on and had quite a bit of survival gear with me. My helmet had come off in the tumble but I had a touque (wool hat for you Americans) and a neck warmer. I also had extra layers of fleece clothing and extra gloves and mitts. I had one extra bottle of water and a package of beef jerky as well.

The thing that really made the difference in my survival though was the tarp. It wasn't really cold out that night I would guess maybe -5C to -8C at the coldest point, but there was a gusty wind and blowing snow and the tarp really kept the weather off me. I was on about a 30 degree slope with another bigger cliff below me (although I didn't know it at the time) so I dug a shallow hole to keep me from sliding down the slope. I wrapped my self up in the tarp and settled in.

From time to time I could here my buddies yelling down from the top to check on me. They told me they had sent someone for help and that a helicopter should be on the way. At one point I heard a helicopter and thought I was about to be rescued but it turned around and went away. Eventually it got dark and cloudy enough that I realized I was going to be spending the night out on the side of the mountain.

My buddies had also realized that there was nothing else they could do for me so they headed down the mountain. Later in the evening I could here sleds again as the Mcbride Search and Rescue showed up but they were also unable to do anything for me.