Climbing accident rescue mission

Sunday morning I woke up by very disturbing phone call from my mum. She had gone hiking and decided to do some freestyle climbing without her climbing gear. Quite high up the mountain wall she must have torn some muscle fibres and gotten a severe muscle inflammation and lost her grip. As she slid down the wall she tried desperate to grab onto anything as she would never make the fall if she didn’t. She managed to slide down to a very narrow shelf but was badly scratched up and was experiencing cramps in both her leg and

Mum after the climbing accident arm, she was now stuck. She didn’t want to call the police and be rescued by an emergency helicopter so I packed her climbing gear and drove up to the mountains with dad and my husband ready to belay her down. It was a long drive and we had to hike an hour and an half to make it there. Halfway through our rescue mission we received the good news that she had managed to climb down after the cramps in her foot had stopped and she even kicked of her hiking boots to get a better grip with her toes. When we found her she was in the lake washing of the blood, and in fairly good spirit. Insane. A word that describes my life, me and my family. Mum loves extreme sports, and climbing is one of her many passions, but this accident scared me. If she hadn’t managed to land on a shelf, or if there hadn’t been one there at all she would have broken her back or neck, or died. I am dreading the day I will receive that phone call, and I hope it never comes. I am quite angry with her for not using her climbing gear, as a climbing instructor she should know better. And also as my mum

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Last modified on 2010-06-23