Rescue Flatirons, Sunday Nov 8

I saw SAR take off from Water tower above NCAR. High angle rescue gear. Hope everyone is OK.

I also was up there and ran into SAR coming up as I was going back down. Any word on what happened?

It was my wife who was injured.

We'd gone up to climb Angels Way on Ridge Three. That was our first time that far back Skunk Canyon and were flumoxed by the vertical step in the trail at the toe of Satan's Slab. She thought she saw a cairn up a small gully that didn't look too difficult from below and headed up to check it out.

I don't know what caused her to slip, but I heard her yell and watched her fall. I will never, ever get that scene out of my head. It was and still is fucking terrible...

She landed on her back and her scapula was forced into her rib cage breaking seven ribs, two of which punctured her lung. She also broke her patella as well as suffered from a dozen superficial fractures of vertebrae. I'm pretty sure she landed on a rock that caused the localized damage. If so, she's really lucky as a fall 3" further to the left would have meant severe spinal trauma and/or paralysis.

Luckily RMR was in the area doing exercises and were on scene in ~45 minutes (I had excellent cell coverage in Skunk Canyon and was able to call 911 without having to leave her). It took close to three hours for them to get her back to the ambo at the water tank as they had to do several rope assisted carries down Skunk Canyon. She's been in the ICU until last night and will hopefully be released from the hospital tomorrow morning.

A couple of thoughts:

1. All I could think about while waiting for RMR to arrive was Jack Roberts and the quickness with which punctured lungs can become fatal. I was constantly checking her breathing for gurgling sounds although none were even obvious.

2. She was lucky she didn't hit her head. We both had helmets with us but the logical step of putting them on for that steep section just didn't occur to either of us. Things could have gone very, very differently.

Conclusions:
1. Be careful, even on what looks like easy terrain
2. Wear a helmet
3. Go home and hug your wife, husband or significant other tonight.

phew, glad she's all right and glad you were cool, along with the RMR folks.....

Dave Bn wrote: Go home and hug your wife, husband or significant other tonight.

Also done. Wishing her a complete and relatively quick recovery.

Wishing her a full and speedy recovery.

The Skunk Canyon approaches are deceptively complicated, how can a place so close to a major town feel like a jungle?

This is devastating news. I wish, for your wife and you, a complete recovery.

Best wishes for your wife's speedy recovery!

Ditto to what the others said. Recovery will be rough, keep her optimistic and occupied!