Rule Number 2: Bounce Back!
It rapidly occurs to one who finds himself hurtling at 10m/s/s through a 7m free fall that at some point the newsreel that is his life should begin. But it simply didn’t, all I thought was “how did I get myself into this mess?” The impact came like a shock, like a wake-up call as sudden as a car crash even though for a brief moment I had been expected it. Sounds and vision came rushing back. I heard a loud huh! and realized it was all the air being forced from my lungs. You see I fell onto my head and neck but as luck would have it my large empty pack had slid over my head and my dreadlocks added to the cushion effect. Perhaps cushion is not the correct word. Suddenly I could hear and see again. Then it hit me… something that I had left trailing behind. Something doctors call the ‘left leg’. Thats right after my neck then pelvis hit the rocks at the base of the cliff my left knee came hurtling down and cracked my rib. I essentially kicked myself in the ribs. I heard the deafening CRACK! Then I rolled painfull to my right and through a huge patch of stinging nettle.
Evidence of extreme impact
Wait! This is becoming a ridiculous story. First a wasp nest, then a free fall, then broken bones and deep impact bruising and then I roll around in stinging nettle. You would be forgiven for assuming I am making this all up, believe me I wish I was. For at that very moment I was experience something akin to the fires of hell-and-brimstone. I lurched out onto the river bed screaming like an extra in a horror film. But sadly my ordeal was not even half over.
It would seem that falling and breaking yourself was the easy part, the hart part is staying alive afterwards and getting home to tell the tale. There I was is an unmapped river too narrow to land a helicopter and too thick to be seen from the air and I was hurting… bad! I had to get somewhere where I could be rescued before I passed out. So somehow painfully I put my pack on my back and wobbled 500m down stream to the open valley floor. Then I felt it was time to collapse. I was going into shock fast and need to get a bit of pro-active first aid going, warm clothes feet elevated and maybe happy thought. I triggered my EPERB, an emergency beacon we carry when on jobs in the back country. My radio was out of commission with a flat battery. I lay down on a huge flat rock and waited. The cavalry would be here soon, any minute now. They’ll pick up the signal on satellite and beam the co-ordinates to Wellington and then the rescue helicopter will come and find me and save the day. And so I waited… and after five hours I faced the shocking realization. They weren’t coming…
Evacuation time
I was doing better in some ways and worse in many other ways. The shock had passed so I wasn’t about to drop dead, but I could only breath through one lung as the other had closed down due to the broken rib. Some would say that one lung is a disadvantage if you where planning to do what I was thinking. Namely climb the 800m 70-degree trackless valley wall and crawl the 3km knife edge ridge to get to the safety of my tent and co-workers. I would have said that doing it at night might be the biggest handicap. But I had no choice. I stripped my pack to the essential, excluding the heavy and now useless radio, wrote a last will and testimony, put out the signal fire and started up to the bush line. It was tough at first then as the hours passed, well, it got even tougher. However there were two advantages of the night, firstly the cold air made for better breathing and secondly the total absence of wasps, for which I had formed a strong dislike. As I walked I got the stitch which held my broken rib in place and so reduced the pain. Eventually following 3 hrs of hard slog I reached the ridge, just 1km from the hut, and with a complicated system of flashing lights and yelling I raised the alarm with the co-workers, one of which was my partner Franny Cunninghame. I must admit at that moment the ordeal was nearly over, now the outside world knew I where I was and my partner knew I wasn’t dead and so I may have shed a little tear, but in a manly way. I was aided the last 500m and lay in the hut for 24hrs to collect enough strength to leave. I then radioed for a helicopter and was soon being X-rays in the hospital. Talk about a tough day a work.
A reason for predator control (Mountain Parrot KEA)
The unsuspecting character in our tale
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