GroupWBench

"Help. My partner fell and he’s hurt." That was when an easy day of climbing turned ugly on Saturday.

Ivy, Jack, and I were climbing at Crowder’s Mountain just south of Charlotte. We had done a couple of fairly easy climbs on the David’s Castle wall and were packing up to move to another cliff when we heard the call for help.

The guy looking for help explained that he and his partner were climbing two cliffs over on a bolted sport climb on Red Wall when his partner fell and broke his leg. He wanted to know if anyone there knew first aid "…because the bone is sticking out." Everyone looked at each other and no one moved. Finally, I said I’d go down and help him, Ivy and Jack said they would go up to the top to meet the rescue guys and show them how to get to the accident site. Jed had called 911 and they said they would get people up to us soon.

Still in my harness and climbing shoes, I followed this slightly freaked out guy (he said his name was Jed) across the base of the backside of David’s Castle, then down and around to Red Wall. He was shouting to his partner, Mark, to tell him he was coming back. 

We arrived to the base of their climb to find a large guy (I later found out that he weighs 260 lbs) on his back about ten feet from the base of the cliff. His feet were a little higher than his head as the ground sloped away from the face. It looked like he landed on some shoes and a pack. His left foot was twisted out and his knee wasn’t. The twist started about half way down his shin. Mark had broke the tibia and fibula of his right leg. About six inches of the fibula had ripped through the muscle and skin in a long tear and it was sticking out from his shin. It was a gruesome sight.

I checked and made sure that, other than the leg, he wasn’t hurting. He was conscious and breathing ok. The bleeding around the tear was pretty minor. I got a couple of gauze bandages and covered the exposed bone and cut, trying to keep the bugs and flies and other nasty stuff off of his leg. Then I got his harness off – it was a good thing it had adjustable leg loops or we would have had to cut it off. We covered him with jackets and got his helmet off. His color was ok. I would have been freaking out if it had been me, but Mark stayed pretty calm, all things considered.

After about twenty minutes, a ranger with a big orange first aid pack came jogging up. I told him what we were looking at and what I’d done. He was able to confirm that the rescue truck was driving up the radio tower trail and would be close in a few minutes. He took over taking care of Mark, getting out a big pad to use for pressure to squeeze off any bleeding and some ice packs after checking him over.

I went back up the trail and waited at the semi hidden turn off. Before long another ranger with a big first aid pack jogged up. She wasn’t sure where to go, I pointed out the trail and she asked me to stay and lead the fire men and EMS in when they got there. After about fifteen minutes, eight or ten guys from the county rescue squad came up with lots of gear and a big stretcher. I led them down and around to the accident site.

The next twenty or thirty minutes or so were full of activity – administering oxygen, getting an IV with some morphene started, stabilizing the leg, putting Mark on a backboard, then getting the backboard on the stretcher. What a job that was. When the rescue guys realized how big Mark was, they asked if Jack and I could stay and help.

They had to carry the stretcher down the side of the mountain to the maintenance trail. It is very steep, off limits to hikers and climbers, and covered with old leaves and burned snags from a fire a couple of years back. It took seven people to carry the stretcher. They headed down the mountain as Jack and I packed up Mark’s gear. He had a huge pack full of stuff for a long weekend of climbing. Jack carried that down behind the stretcher while I carried the two packs the Rangers had brought in.

We passed the stretcher about a third of the way down as they stopped to rest and to let the flight nurses from the air-evac crew check on Mark. They had come up from the tower trail and were waiting at the point where the mountain started getting real steep. I know the rescue crew was needing a rest by then. The way down was hard for me with just a couple of packs. I know that these guys weren’t used to the kind of work they were having to do with the stretcher.

Jack and I zipped down to the trail and dropped off our loads and went back up to the rescue team and offloaded more of their gear. Jack replaced one of the rescue squad that was having trouble carrying the stretcher. Once they got Mark down, they put him in the back of a pickup and took off for the helecopter to get him to the big hospital in Charlotte. That trip down the mountain must have really hurt for Mark.

Jack and I went back up the mountain again. We had promised to recover the last of Mark’s gear – he had three quick draws hanging from the bolts on the climb he fell from. Ivy met us at our gear and we hiked over to the top of the climb. I scrambled through sticker bush city to get a rope over the edge and belayed Jack up the climb. Then, with all gear in hand, we took our exhausted selves back up to the very top of the mountain and hiked out on the trail. It was a long, tiring, and dirty day.

We looked at where Mark fell and were able to determine that he probably stopped too low to clip the third bolt. He was on a marginal stance and reaching way above his head. When you clip above yourself like that, you end up with a lot of extra rope out. In this case, it was enough to let Mark hit the ground from twentyfive or thirty feet up. Ouch! It looked like he would have had a much better stance if he were another foot or two higher before reaching for the bolt.

You normally think of sport climbing as fairly safe, but I think it teaches some bad habits. Trad climbing teaches you to be pretty careful to not fall. Sport climbing tends to treat falls as a normal thing. Mark’s adventure show’s where that can take you.

I called and spoke with Jed today. Mark had surgery to place a metal rod along the fibula and is expected to fully recover. Jed said the doctors at the hospital said that everything looked clean and that everyone had done the right thing for first aid.

I still see that long chunk of bone and the torn open shin – that was really grim.