Not just an ordinary Sunday
Ok, a show of hands: How many people have gotten to fly in a "Flight for Life" helicopter?
There's another collection which I passively-obsessively (can I use those words together??) pursue. Colorado has 52 mountain peaks that reach over 14,000 feet above sea level. There are none reaching 15,000 feet. We outdoorsy types in Colorado refer to the 14,000+ peaks as "14ers." I collect 14ers of which I have summited (reached the top.) Its not as easy as it sounds. All of the ones I have done are "walk-ups", meaning that no technical (rope) climbing is involved, but as you ascend further from sea level, the air gets progressively thinner (contains less and less oxygen.) Breathing gets more labored, your cardio-vascular fitness gets tested, and your muscles, deprived of the oxygen they need to function, weaken and fatigue. Subservient to this collection of 14ers is a collection the topographic maps for each mountain region highlighting the route I or we took to the summit.
Pikes Peak, one of Colorado's better known 14ers (but not the tallest), is one I've climbed. In fact, I ran the Pikes Peak Marathon which begins in Manitou Springs below the mountain and runs to the summit and back (26.2 miles, but not much actual "running" goes on above 13,000 feet as the route becomes made of nothing but huge boulders and the air thins to nothing.) In preparation for this race, I've run (again, "run" means run the bottom of the routes and hastily hiked the top 1000 feet or so) Mt. Torreys, Greys Peak and Mt. Bierstadt. Still, climbing these peaks for all but those in very good physical condition is a challenge not easily forgotten (except, of course, for ECT patients.)
Today, I and a friend (David) set out to add another 14er to the list of summits reached, Mt. Evans (The huge mountain that looms over the metro-Denver area to the west, and the closest peak to Denver. You can actually drive to the top of Evans (if youÂre a wuss.) Our course was to take us up the same trail as for climbing Mt. Bierstadt, and then breaking off to the north before the final pitch to the Bierstadt summit and crossing a saddleback called the "Sawtooth." Its still a bit early for climbing, and there was still a fair amount of snow to deal with, and snow-melt-mud in most other places below the summit area. Today was the first climb IÂve made since beginning to take Risperdal for my mania. Side effects of Risperdal include decreased activity, lack of coordination, dizziness, tremor, decreased blood flow and respiratory distress. This list would have been a good thing to study before this climb.
I noticed that I was breathing harder than normal pretty early in the hike, but just assumed that it was my level of conditioning, and that I would acclimate to some degree and be fine. Well, the trail cutting off to Mt. Evans was very illusive, and we never found it. So, we decided to summit Bierstadt (again) as long as we were there. I noticed feeling dizzy at about 12,500 feet, again just attributing it to conditioning and oxygen deprivation, but beginning to think about Risperdal as a culprit.
As you ascend most 14ers, you get above "tree line" (above which no trees grow) at around 12,000 vertical feet. Toward the top, you usually run into "skree" which is loose small rock that is a little tricky. Most 14ers feature "boulder fields" as the last couple hundred feet of ascent. Think rocks of sizes ranging from bowling balls to VW Bugs, and a 75-90 degree vertical pitch (some hand climbing, but, again, nothing technical). About 200 vertical feet below the summit of Bierstadt, I was in the middle of the boulder field, struggling for air, and feeling pretty dizzy but determined to reach the top. Ah, pride, the cause of many a misstep. It only takes one bad step.
I stepped up with my right foot to a rock about 3 feet above my present position, and as I brought my left foot up, the right one lost footing and slipped off. The result was a fall straight backwards (remember, there's nothing but big rocks and a steep pitch for a couple hundred feet below me), landing first on my back, padded by a backpack full of extra clothing (padding). "Ouch", but my immediate hope was that the fall would end there. But when I felt my feet come over my head in a backwards summersault as I left that first landing spot and fell off of that first spot into the air again, I knew the pain was about to get worse. I recall thinking "cover your head, this is gonna hurt." I got my face covered, but I landed on the crown of my head on a big rock. Total fall: 30-35 vertical feet with one bounce in the middle. I wound up lying on the back of my head and neck with my body sort of jumbled above me in a crevasse. I recall smacking my head (that bright light flash and sharp "crack" and ringing you get when something hard hits your head), then darkness, then my left knee hurting like hell, and just after that, a roaring headache. I managed to roll over onto my butt and slump forward and revel in the pain of mostly my knee. I was trying to assess the extent of my injuries and I noticed the headache getting worse and the world making this continuous slide to the right. Dizziness after head trauma...bad. As I looked off into the distance, the dizziness intensified into a spin. I sat with my knees pulled up and my head slumped forward, and I could feel the blood from the gash on top of my head pouring down my face and dripping onto the rock below me. Its tough knowing you are hurt and bleeding, but not being able to see the wound to know how bad it is. But I knew I was hurt, and hurt bad enough that I wasn't likely to walk off of that mountain on my own any time soon.
I yelled "DAVID!" Nothing but echo. I yelled again, and a guy coming up the mountain heard me and yelled "Are you all right?" "No!" I responded. He told me to sit tight, and he came to me. My luck was bad enough to allow me to fall and split my head open, but good enough to have me discovered by a guy on a "training" hike (he's leaving Friday to climb Mt. McKinley in Washington) and carrying 8 liters of water in his pack just for added weight. Those liters of water came in handy in washing and freezing (they were frozen liters when his hike began) my wound so he could use his first aid kit (something I didn't have) to bandage me up and get the bleeding to stop. Someone else happened upon us and went to get David from the summit. He arrived a few minutes later. David, Steve (the guy that found me) and I discussed whether to call for help. David had a phone that had signal, and I had a GPS unit in my pack. Given that I could barely stand, David called 911 just to let them know what was up, and that we may need help getting me out of there. It was an exciting day.
With blood dried in streams down my face and on my clothes, dry heaves which were never kind enough to go the distance and let me vomit (from concussion, I think) and two banged up knees, the three of us slowly made our way down the mountain about a mile and a half. There was lots of snow, and I was able to glissade (aka "ass-sled") down quite a bit of the route. Getting out of the boulders with the nausea and vertigo and legs that weren't working too well was tricky. But we had to go the mile and a half just to get to a spot flat enough for the helicopter to land and pick me up. David stayed in contact, off and on, with the Cook County Sheriff. About 2 hours after the fall, I was being put into a neck cuff and loaded onto the chopper for flight to the hospital. The bleeding had stopped, and the further down we came the better the vertigo got (although it never got very good, and the nausea remained), but the headache got worse. Damn, how embarrassing! I consider myself to be a well conditioned, athletic guy. I've RUN up this mountain before! And now I'm being flown out. And to top it off, the flight nurses CUT my brand new "Cherry Creek Sneak" shirt off of me for access to put in an IV! Did they HAVE to CUT it?!?!
So, an x-ray, CT scan, a concussion diagnosis and three stitches to the scalp later, Melissa took me home and cared for me and my battered head. David and Steve hiked on down and David drove my Jeep back to town.
Melissa tells this story from am different perspective. She arrived at the ER after I had called her and said "Don't worry. I'm ok, but I'm at the hospital", told them who she was and was escorted to a room by the security guard (this was a hospital in a pretty bad part of Denver.) Eight doctors and nurses stood around this person on a gurney. The person wasn't moving and his skin looked gray. As Melissa entered the room, all of the medics turned and stopped her and one asked "Are you family? Melissa said "Yes, I'm the wife." You're who?" the doctor asked. "You should be at the chapel with the rest of the family." The security guard popped back in and said "Oh, sorry, wrong room." The person on that gurney was dead, and Melissa was thinking "I just talked to him and he sounded fine." As if I don't put her through enough trauma.
And all of this excitement from a simple "I'll be home by three" day-hike. Life doesn't get much more interesting than that!
There's another collection which I passively-obsessively (can I use those words together??) pursue. Colorado has 52 mountain peaks that reach over 14,000 feet above sea level. There are none reaching 15,000 feet. We outdoorsy types in Colorado refer to the 14,000+ peaks as "14ers." I collect 14ers of which I have summited (reached the top.) Its not as easy as it sounds. All of the ones I have done are "walk-ups", meaning that no technical (rope) climbing is involved, but as you ascend further from sea level, the air gets progressively thinner (contains less and less oxygen.) Breathing gets more labored, your cardio-vascular fitness gets tested, and your muscles, deprived of the oxygen they need to function, weaken and fatigue. Subservient to this collection of 14ers is a collection the topographic maps for each mountain region highlighting the route I or we took to the summit.
Pikes Peak, one of Colorado's better known 14ers (but not the tallest), is one I've climbed. In fact, I ran the Pikes Peak Marathon which begins in Manitou Springs below the mountain and runs to the summit and back (26.2 miles, but not much actual "running" goes on above 13,000 feet as the route becomes made of nothing but huge boulders and the air thins to nothing.) In preparation for this race, I've run (again, "run" means run the bottom of the routes and hastily hiked the top 1000 feet or so) Mt. Torreys, Greys Peak and Mt. Bierstadt. Still, climbing these peaks for all but those in very good physical condition is a challenge not easily forgotten (except, of course, for ECT patients.)
Today, I and a friend (David) set out to add another 14er to the list of summits reached, Mt. Evans (The huge mountain that looms over the metro-Denver area to the west, and the closest peak to Denver. You can actually drive to the top of Evans (if youÂre a wuss.) Our course was to take us up the same trail as for climbing Mt. Bierstadt, and then breaking off to the north before the final pitch to the Bierstadt summit and crossing a saddleback called the "Sawtooth." Its still a bit early for climbing, and there was still a fair amount of snow to deal with, and snow-melt-mud in most other places below the summit area. Today was the first climb IÂve made since beginning to take Risperdal for my mania. Side effects of Risperdal include decreased activity, lack of coordination, dizziness, tremor, decreased blood flow and respiratory distress. This list would have been a good thing to study before this climb.
I noticed that I was breathing harder than normal pretty early in the hike, but just assumed that it was my level of conditioning, and that I would acclimate to some degree and be fine. Well, the trail cutting off to Mt. Evans was very illusive, and we never found it. So, we decided to summit Bierstadt (again) as long as we were there. I noticed feeling dizzy at about 12,500 feet, again just attributing it to conditioning and oxygen deprivation, but beginning to think about Risperdal as a culprit.
As you ascend most 14ers, you get above "tree line" (above which no trees grow) at around 12,000 vertical feet. Toward the top, you usually run into "skree" which is loose small rock that is a little tricky. Most 14ers feature "boulder fields" as the last couple hundred feet of ascent. Think rocks of sizes ranging from bowling balls to VW Bugs, and a 75-90 degree vertical pitch (some hand climbing, but, again, nothing technical). About 200 vertical feet below the summit of Bierstadt, I was in the middle of the boulder field, struggling for air, and feeling pretty dizzy but determined to reach the top. Ah, pride, the cause of many a misstep. It only takes one bad step.
I stepped up with my right foot to a rock about 3 feet above my present position, and as I brought my left foot up, the right one lost footing and slipped off. The result was a fall straight backwards (remember, there's nothing but big rocks and a steep pitch for a couple hundred feet below me), landing first on my back, padded by a backpack full of extra clothing (padding). "Ouch", but my immediate hope was that the fall would end there. But when I felt my feet come over my head in a backwards summersault as I left that first landing spot and fell off of that first spot into the air again, I knew the pain was about to get worse. I recall thinking "cover your head, this is gonna hurt." I got my face covered, but I landed on the crown of my head on a big rock. Total fall: 30-35 vertical feet with one bounce in the middle. I wound up lying on the back of my head and neck with my body sort of jumbled above me in a crevasse. I recall smacking my head (that bright light flash and sharp "crack" and ringing you get when something hard hits your head), then darkness, then my left knee hurting like hell, and just after that, a roaring headache. I managed to roll over onto my butt and slump forward and revel in the pain of mostly my knee. I was trying to assess the extent of my injuries and I noticed the headache getting worse and the world making this continuous slide to the right. Dizziness after head trauma...bad. As I looked off into the distance, the dizziness intensified into a spin. I sat with my knees pulled up and my head slumped forward, and I could feel the blood from the gash on top of my head pouring down my face and dripping onto the rock below me. Its tough knowing you are hurt and bleeding, but not being able to see the wound to know how bad it is. But I knew I was hurt, and hurt bad enough that I wasn't likely to walk off of that mountain on my own any time soon.
I yelled "DAVID!" Nothing but echo. I yelled again, and a guy coming up the mountain heard me and yelled "Are you all right?" "No!" I responded. He told me to sit tight, and he came to me. My luck was bad enough to allow me to fall and split my head open, but good enough to have me discovered by a guy on a "training" hike (he's leaving Friday to climb Mt. McKinley in Washington) and carrying 8 liters of water in his pack just for added weight. Those liters of water came in handy in washing and freezing (they were frozen liters when his hike began) my wound so he could use his first aid kit (something I didn't have) to bandage me up and get the bleeding to stop. Someone else happened upon us and went to get David from the summit. He arrived a few minutes later. David, Steve (the guy that found me) and I discussed whether to call for help. David had a phone that had signal, and I had a GPS unit in my pack. Given that I could barely stand, David called 911 just to let them know what was up, and that we may need help getting me out of there. It was an exciting day.
With blood dried in streams down my face and on my clothes, dry heaves which were never kind enough to go the distance and let me vomit (from concussion, I think) and two banged up knees, the three of us slowly made our way down the mountain about a mile and a half. There was lots of snow, and I was able to glissade (aka "ass-sled") down quite a bit of the route. Getting out of the boulders with the nausea and vertigo and legs that weren't working too well was tricky. But we had to go the mile and a half just to get to a spot flat enough for the helicopter to land and pick me up. David stayed in contact, off and on, with the Cook County Sheriff. About 2 hours after the fall, I was being put into a neck cuff and loaded onto the chopper for flight to the hospital. The bleeding had stopped, and the further down we came the better the vertigo got (although it never got very good, and the nausea remained), but the headache got worse. Damn, how embarrassing! I consider myself to be a well conditioned, athletic guy. I've RUN up this mountain before! And now I'm being flown out. And to top it off, the flight nurses CUT my brand new "Cherry Creek Sneak" shirt off of me for access to put in an IV! Did they HAVE to CUT it?!?!
So, an x-ray, CT scan, a concussion diagnosis and three stitches to the scalp later, Melissa took me home and cared for me and my battered head. David and Steve hiked on down and David drove my Jeep back to town.
Melissa tells this story from am different perspective. She arrived at the ER after I had called her and said "Don't worry. I'm ok, but I'm at the hospital", told them who she was and was escorted to a room by the security guard (this was a hospital in a pretty bad part of Denver.) Eight doctors and nurses stood around this person on a gurney. The person wasn't moving and his skin looked gray. As Melissa entered the room, all of the medics turned and stopped her and one asked "Are you family? Melissa said "Yes, I'm the wife." You're who?" the doctor asked. "You should be at the chapel with the rest of the family." The security guard popped back in and said "Oh, sorry, wrong room." The person on that gurney was dead, and Melissa was thinking "I just talked to him and he sounded fine." As if I don't put her through enough trauma.
And all of this excitement from a simple "I'll be home by three" day-hike. Life doesn't get much more interesting than that!
posted by DeMental at 6:23 PM
3 Comments:
Mike, Mike, Mike (shaking head in disbelief).
I'm sure you're already aware of this but you're lucky the outcome wasn't much worse.
Pride, hmmmmm.
Very glad you survived your adventure and, it sounds like, learned a valuable lesson about how medications can present limitations.
What was the result of the CAT scan? It would be interesting to see if the concussion or, more likely, the ECT had caused damage. But then CAT is a very crude tool nowadays, and its results in ECT patients are mixed.
Very glad you survived your adventure
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