Re: Snow Nymph's Recent Climbing Accident
Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 9:48 pm
Hope you can get back to the mountains you love soon!:)
I'm pretty beat up, but with rest and surgery should be back on my feet in 6-8 weeks. Xrays show broken clavicle (R side, reqs surgery), broken ribs on R side and fractured pelvis on L side. Luckily the boulder rolled over me before picking up speed and bounced down the steep slope. I have friends close by in Mammoth and Bishop that are here for me. 
Tamberly and Jefe drove to Bridgeport and picked up the FJ. I won't be able to drive for awhile since my shifting arm and clutch leg are both injured. Tam took me to Vons to stock up on food, etc for the rest of the week, and even grilled a few steaks AND cut it up so I can just microwave and eat. She took the time to do little things like unscrew the "press downs and twist" med bottles that would be impossible to open with only one arm. She made things easier for me while stuck inside. I'm seeing the Orthopedic Surgeon on Friday, and hope to have the surgery done next week. Scott will drive up when that is scheduled, and he'll drive me home in the FJ and we'll leave the Rubi in Mammoth (bumpy ride, not good for my injuries). I quit taking pain meds yesterday, so was able to work on the pix from this trip. Its hard typing with 1 left finger when you're right handed. I'll add the link here when I finish the album later today. In the meantime, I uploaded a few pix on my wall if you're on Facebook.
So here's the summary of what happened, that I've been sending out to people who e-mailed that aren't Facebook:
"Three of us back packed in for an overnighter. We got to camp and dropped some gear. We started climbing Virginia peak, and 0.4 mi up, a 500# boulder about the size of me rolled. I was below it, luckily close to it or it would have crushed me bouncing down the chute. This was at 3pm. Hiked down CL3 chute with only clavicle pain, but L leg started feeling weird before I got to camp. Once at camp I made the decision to push 911 on my SPOT personal beacon (5:09pm). Gimp leg would not do well going 7 mi w/3000' el loss. SAR arrived on foot ~1:45am and checked me (BP, HR, etc) They made calls and said helo would be there in the morning. Since I could not walk to helo, they gave me morphine and put me on a flatboard and carried me there. I was on helo by 7am and flew to Mammoth. Got to Mammoth around 9:20am and xferred to ambulance. At first declined morphine, but after being moved again it felt like a big knife in my neck so asked for another shot of morphine. In Mammoth ER til about 5pm, and got drugs and xrays, and lots of sleep. Tam and Jefe picked me up and took me to their place and fed me before taking me home."
