Again, figuring that shouting for help was my best bet as mountain weather can very suddenly take a turn for the worse, I shouted "HELP" for approximately 15 minutes or so. I was fortunate I have a rather booming voice and there were plenty of natural canyons in Desolation Wilderness to provide echo and reverberation effects. I imagined a hiker/camper would at first hear my shouts and not take them too seriously, or rather see the situation as a curiosity, but ultimately with enough repetition would realize I was in a serious situation. This is kind of the way human nature is when presented with a new situation I find. So the repetition was certainly important. I even threw in a few "911" and "SOS" yells in there. Then. I heard a few responses along the lines of "Hello" and "Where are you". To which I replied "California!". No I didn't. But I was encouraged.
A few more minutes of shouting back and forth eventually had me hearing, in the distance, "We have called 911". A few more minutes and I finally saw hope: three hikers about 1000ft elevation below me. They had not yet seen me, so I shouted that I was at about 9000ft elevation and signaled with my head lamp towards them. This helped them see me. We made eye contact, albeit from about a quarter mile apart. FINALLY, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
I at first thought the three hikers might be paramedics, but I soon realized they were instead just some pretty awesome late teenage dudes. I say this because I heard some moderate swearing at each others' expense about what to do and not a lot of sound technical advice ;) But they had hearts of gold and assured me they would stay near until I was rescued. They then assured me a helicopter was on the way and only an hour and a half away. Again, more sighs of relief. Followed by some mild qualms of where said helicopter might actually land near me; it was quite rocky. Well, I imagined even in my situation I could crawl eventually to a helicopter.
Some 5 minutes later, to my surprise, a helicopter flew by. I aided them by signaling again with my headlamp and waving my arms. They shouted at me through a loud speaker to waive my arms if I was injured, so I did. They then assured me they would return shortly to help. And they did, some 10 minutes later. The three dudes were STILL waiting. If I ever get their info I would really want to reward them with at least some GCs or something. Again, another sigh of relief when the helicopter returned.
And then the helicopter flew towards me. I thought, "For sure it won't land all the way up here!" And to my surprise, a young woman dropped out of the helicopter attached to a cable. Then it hit me, "OHHHHHHH. I'm getting pulled up into the helicopter." Wow. Yikes. The woman, named Rita, aided me in putting on a harness and took my day pack after asking if I needed anything from it first, to which I replied, "no". I should have said "yes, my wallet". She explained I couldn't wear the pack while being hoisted up. She then instructed me to grab on to the handles of the harness and pull myself in a ball. WHEEE!
Don't think Matt. Don't think. Just do it. I used to be frightened of even 1 hour domestic flights. Getting pulled up into a helicopter was brand new territory. But the hoist was pretty seamless. I made it to the top and then got dumped in the cabin as the helicopter tilted the other direction. Greg and Kevin I believe were the pilots. Greg offered me water. I was scared crapless that I would fall out of the helicopter so I hung on to every last bit of scaffolding in the cabin I could find (even well after the door closed.) Greg explained we would fly to South Tahoe airport where I would then be transferred by ambulance to the hospital. Cool. I mean I was not in pain and pretty stoked to be out of danger, so yeah.
Kinda chilled at the airport for a while as the ambulance had not yet arrived and there was another trauma that needed a medi evac. Triage wise, a painless broken ankle is nothing. So, was pretty fine with that time. Chatted with Greg and Kevin, thanked them, watched the chopper get refueled, and eventually was escorted to the ambulance gurney. Took a nice uneventful ride to the hospital. Chatted it up with the EMT who happened to also be a scorpio. She offered a bag of ice for my ankle and I figured I didn't need it. I told her my pain level was probably a 1. We arrived at the ER and I was put in an exam room. The transfer to the hospital bed was PAINFUL due to my sore back.
I was checked on by nurses and eventually the ER Doctor. After a negative exam of all other parts of my body, he decided the only serious concern was my ankle and ordered an X-ray. The result was a fracture (a comminuted medial malleolas fracture to be precise). Part of me went oh shit broken ankles suck and part of me was relieved I didn't cause all this fuss for a simple sprain. He told me I would be released, set me up with a walking boot and crutches, and said that I should consult an orthopedic surgeon as soon as I returned home. Okay, NOT BAD! But wait, I don't have a wallet, don't have a phone, and have no food/water/extra layers because they were in my pack. Yeah. I'm stranded.
Fortunately, the lovely Barton hospital staff came to my rescue and set me up with a care package of blankets, food, water, and a free taxi voucher back to my truck. The plan was to sleep in my truck for the night, get my day pack from the ranger in the morning, and then drive home. Kinda worried about this? Driving on my broken foot? But, the plan was in place. I called my Mom with the idea of reassuring my family I was okay. This instead led to a panic, but I assuaged their worries the next day. I made it to the taxi, slept, and somewhat gingerly drove back on the broken foot. I was safe again at home.
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