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Accident on Antelope Island 11/23/13
On Saturday at 10:00am some friends and I started hiking from Frary Peak trail head on Antelope Island. By 11:30am we had made it about 2.5 miles and 6000 feet and were approaching Stringham Peak. At this elevation there was a little snow on and off the trail and the trail was traversing across the side of the mountain. I unclipped my GPS to check our location and relationship to Frary Peak. As I was looking at the screen I accidently stepped off the trail with my left foot and slipped down the hill. In a split second decision I shifted my weight to my right foot and tried to jump back on to the trail. My right foot then also slipped and twisted underneath me. As my weight came down on the side of my foot I heard a pop and had feelings in my ankle I had never felt before. It took a lot of deep breathing like they teach in Lamaze class to get through the pain. If someone would have hiked passed me at this point they might have thought this guy was having a baby on the side of the trail. The guys I had been hiking with came over to see what had happen. One of them handed me my GPS that I had spiked down during the fall like a football in the end zone. After I got my composure back I took my boot off and looked at my foot. It looked like someone had replaced my ankle bone with a baseball. At this point I knew I was not going to bag this peak today and was wondering if a visit from SAR was in my near future. I have always wanted to be part of that elite group but not in this way. So I downed a fist full of Ibuprofen, (you gotta love that stuff), and had one of my friends find a walking stick. He came back with a dead tree but it was all he could find. I tightened up my boot and started hobbling down the mountain with my friend caring my pack. We passed a lot of hikers coming up the mountain, or maybe I should say, a lot of hikers passed us. All of them very concerned and willing to help in any way they could. My friend and I just kept moving motivated by the fact that every time I would stop the pain would spike up. At one point we passed 3 bison standing on the hill above us very close to the trail watching us move down the trail. As I was hobbling the thought hit me, “I wonder if they are looking and me and thinking that’s the one we want to stomp he is injured and weak”. So I told my friend where and how to use the can of bear spray in my backpack just in case. He asked me, “Do you think it will really work? I told him “if it’s got eyes, a nose, and a mouth bear spray won’t kill them but it will make them think they're dying”. We continued on without incident and made it to the trail head. What took us 1.5 hours to go up took 3 hours to get down. I’m very thankful for good friends and Ibuprofen. We drove home and I went to the clinic. I came out with a broken fibula and all the tendon and ligament damage that come free of charge with it. Now 4 days later my foot, ankle and shin have stopped swelling bigger and they might start returning back to their normal size someday. My pride is starting to heal from the stupid mistake I made that has cost me many things; one of them being a fun canyoneering trip we had planned next weekend. But on the bright side of it all I think I can tell the story and laugh about it now. Hopefully you got a laugh too and enjoyed this TR. I don’t like to write, I like to hike!
Lessons learned: Just like you don’t text and drive you should not GPS and hike. And hikers are great people.
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