The consequences of falling

So we are sat on the side of a mountain and I can't walk. The beautiful view seemed to offer some analgesic quality but really not enough. (I took this photo in part just before we started climbing) My ankle by this time was absolutly huge and swelling fast. We got my shoe off quick to check that my toes wern't about to fall off, reasuringly they were still there and I put my shoe on again.

So, We were in walking time about 45 minutes to the nearest place you could call for help if you had fully working lower limbs. Even phoning meant that for a Mountain Rescue team to be gathered and me removed from the hill it could take a good 4 hours. 4 hours of waiting, in pain! So we decided to get ourselves off the hill.

I couldn't sit and do nothing. It is just not my mentality. I couldn't wait to be saved from the consequences of my own mistake. It was slow progress. We started with Mark taking a lot of my weight, spotting and supporting me down steep bits. Across the heather and gorse I crawled on hands and knees then for the rest of the 800m decent over rocks, loose scree, gorse and grass I shuffled on my bum keeping my right leg out of it, although I lost count of how many times I kicked myself and grimaced in pain.

The whole decent was made bareable by the very pretty view and lots of sarcasm.

"It's not that far" I exclaimed at the start of the decent..."I can see the car from here".

(This is the view we had when we started the decent. The car was parked by the trees on the road in the left of the photo).

I decided I would get a sherpa to carry my kayak in the Alps. It didn't dawn on me that by now my ankle was too fat to fit in a kayak.

We laughed about the situation...I've got a first aid kit...in my sack" I joked

"I can give people lots of drugs when I'm with the team" Mark retaliated ...but I don't have them here now".

"I've got a SAM splint....in my bedroom" I added.

It took over 2 hours to get down the steep screes and rocks, covering only 700m. Mark had gone to get the bags and kit from the bottom of the crag. I while coming down on my bum had a guy walked past me. I'd been thinking of Joe SImpson "Touching the Void" all the way down as I told myself just a little bit further. When the guy walked past saying that he had friend to meet and couldn't stop I felt for a moment a sudden wave of anger, like those people who are left to die on Everest as people walk past just wanting to get what they came for without a care for anyone else. Another guy coming down stopped and gave me a support bandage and water and pointed out the easier routes for 50m or so and carried my harness lower down the slope. Little things are very appreciated he was from London Mountaineering Club but i've no idea what his name was.

The last 100m was steep and grassy. I took my bag at this point. I had suddenly realised that Mark had been carrying two sacks of kit (waterproofs, warmkit, food etc) including a full rack of gear and two 50m ropes down and across a very steep slope. I couldn't stop myself on grass so my mate lobbed a rope round a rock, i tied the end round my waist and he slowly lowered me. It was just a safety rope incase I went into an out of control slide and couldn't stop myself. Might I add that this last slope was a sea of thistles, over knee high (almost shoulder high if your sitting down), and very painfull to sit on but it was more hassle to avoid them so I just ended up sitting on them and dealing with the extra pain.

The slope ended in a 5ft wall which dropped onto the A road. 5 foot is nothing if you can jump and land on both feet. It's a long way if you can't do that. Mark slowly lowered me over the edge and passing car drivers rubber necked it at the off sight of a someone being lowered onto the road. With one shoe on and one shoe off (my foot had swollen so much I couldn't keep it in the shoe but had taken it off just before Mark started to lower me on the rope to the road).

Mark scrambled down and went to get the car. I was really hot by the time I go to the road but in true irony the top of that 5 ft wall was covered in lavender and other herbs, so I might have been hot and sweaty...but I smelt gorgeous. Hehe.

In the car, my ankle/foot hurt so much that when Mark breaked and it touched the floor of the car it was soo incredibly painfull. I raided sack for painkillers and found paracetamol(500mg)/coedine(8mg) and took two of those and some ibuprofen it was not much but it was something.

I know you shouldn't but I was soo hungry and thirsty that we stopped on the way home and I hopped with Mark to a chippy to get food and pepsi. I knew I was injured but I didn't quite want to believe it. Plus I get grumpy when I'm hungry!

My mum had phoned when we were on the mountain as I was late back. I phoned and said Mark would drop me off at home and could my mum possibly give me a life to A & E because I might have hurt my ankle a little bit.

I gave my mum the same warning when I fell down a cliff in Turkey (that i might have hurt myself a little) and I had arrived home then with bandages on both arms from fingers to elbow, and on both legs, and on my waist. I'm sure I have a reason to be scared of falling...

A&E - Xray pic.

The problem with falling

I am a climber, or Maybe I should correct that and say that I am a faller.

I'm bored. That is why I am blogging. I am not a computer geek. I don't watch T.V or at least I didn't till this week, now that is all changing.

I fell from this ridge and pendulummed into a slab a rock hitting it right ankle first. It popped on impact and an explossion of pain ricocheted through my body. Suddenly a scream burst from knowhere and before I could think or stop myself I was bellowing "arghhhhhh" at the top of my lungs over and over. I looked at my ankle and foot, my right foot was pointing oddly to the left, as I grabbed it, it popped again, the pain lessened incredibly.

I stopped screaming as sudden as I started, it was about this time that I realised I was hanging on the end of the rope with a very significant amount of free space beneath me. By this point I had scared the hell out of my climbing buddy (Mark) who had seen me fall, heard me scream and now heard only silence! Thinking I had gone unconscious on the rope he had tied my rope off and escaped from the system in order to try get a better look to see if I was ok. It was at this point that I shouted "climbing". There was something that dawned on me whilst I was hanging there on the rope that said..."if you don't get yourself out of this mess now, you won't get out of it...you got yourself in this mess, you can get yourself out".

It also dawned on me that hanging in a harness leads to the same kind of problems of crush victims, so you can die on the rope. Unlikely in this situation because I was conscious but a motivational thought to get the hell out all the same.

(I fell from the blue cross to the red cross, breaking my ankle at the red cross, climbed out over the dotted route with a recked ankle).

So there I was, climbing. Climbing minus one leg. The right ankle didn't feel right, I had either dislocated it or fractured it, I wasn't sure, either way it wasn't right. I also refused to look at it. I didn't think it would help to see what I had done. The pain had been unreal, I knew it wasn't good. I never knew your body allowed you to feel that much pain, I thought you would just pass out. Looking back I don't know how I climbed. It wasn't easy. I hauled myself up with my arms, used my knee on occasion and balanced on my good foot. I was dizzy and starting to feel spaced out. My heart was also racing. But ask me to climb that route now (broken) and I couldn't. It was like survival instinct kicking in.

By the time I reached Mark I was crawling on hands and knees.

"Are your arms ok?" he asked...

"yeh" I replied. It hadn't occured to me that I could have broken an arm too.

"What have you done...?"

"Hurt my ankle" I muttered, thinking; understatement of the year.
I flopped down and stared at the sky waiting for my head to stop spinning. I felt nauseous.

Mark abseiled down and got the gear I had been unable to get out while I lay there cursing myself for falling off and for hurting myself. No kayaking for me in the Alps in 3 weeks! Mark told me to belay him but he actually abseiled down and prusicked back on a different bit of rope. Mark getting me to belay was an attempt to distract me from the pain and make sure I wasn't phasing out.

What would work say...? Would I lose my job? I thought

"Can you weight bare?"

"No" Merely putting my foot on the floor sent waves of nausea through my body. It didn't even feel like my foot existed. A bit like when you've sat in a funny possition and your leg goes "dead" and fails when you stand on it.

Slightly inconvenient I thought...it's 4pm on a hot and sunny afternoon in June. Our packs are 100m below us at the bottom of the crag. This wasn't going to be a long climb. We would have climbed and walk down back past our packs. The seriousness of the situation dawned on me....

Breaking an ankle falling off a kerb is soo much more simple, at least your only 20mins/ half an hour from help. We were sat on the side of a mountain...and I couldn't walk!

Part 2 -