Montana man hikes 10 miles to safety after falling on trekking pole | Montana
A Montana man walked 10 miles to safety with a trekking pole lodged in his torso after falling during a hiking trip on the state’s highest mountain.
David Cifaldi slipped on rocks near the top of 3,902-meter Granite Peak while hiking with two friends on July 20. He fell on one of two poles and “when I fell over, I knew something wasn’t right,” he told the CBS news outlet. KVTQ.
The pole had pierced him under his left arm, pushing out through his lower back and narrowly missing vital organs.
“I could feel the trekking pole through my skin,” he said. “I knew it wasn’t deep and I knew I could breathe deeply.”
Cifaldi, an emergency room nurse trained in wound care, said her medical history came into play and after alerting authorities via satellite communications device, she and her friends decided to hike 6.5 hours along the route they had climbed.
“I think my nurse brain kicked in,” she said in a separate interview with Montana’s. Local 12 news station.
“Once I was able to do a self-assessment and determine that this was not life-threatening right now, I was pretty convinced that I would be able to get down that mountain under my own power.”
After reaching the trailhead, Cifaldi was taken to a local clinic and then driven for two hours by friends to a hospital in Billings; Here surgeons carefully removed the pole.
“I feel very lucky,” he said. “If it had been a few inches away, it would have been a different story.”
Cifaldi and his friends Jesse Ross and Brad Reich set out at 3:30 in the morning to climb the mountain he had long desired. They were about 300 meters from the summit when the accident happened.
One of the friends walked behind Cifaldi to make sure he remained steady on the rough terrain, while the other walked ahead to warn oncoming hikers.
“There are families, and he … took us forward and warned people so that little kids don’t have to see such a big wound,” Ross told KVTQ. “He is so selfless.”
Ross expanded the chapter in an online fundraiser to pay for Cifaldi’s medical bills and a new hiking vest.
“He assessed himself calmly: no bleeding, feeling full, no dizziness, no vital impact, and the post is stable in place,” he wrote.
“Given his situation, he made the call to rescue himself rather than wait to be rescued; he walked 10 miles back to the trailhead with a trekking pole inside his body. [He] He reached the path entirely under his own power; “He didn’t complain once, his morale was quite high.”
Cifaldi said the friends plan to reach the summit again when he fully recovers.
The summit of Granite Peak has been recorded at various locations between 12,799 ft and 13,807 ft. happened Conquered in 1923It is known that from that date until 1953, only 17 climbers reached the summit.
The mountain in the Beartooth Range was the site of one of climbing’s greatest mysteries: the disappearance of 38-year-old Ernest Bruffey during a solo expedition in August 1959, just as an earthquake killed 28 people in Montana.
Human remains and a worn boot believed to belong to Bruffey were found. Found in 2000 by a group of six friends, one of whom was investigating her disappearance.
