Grandfather Mountain State Park: Uh-Oh

Grandfather Mountain State Park:  Uh-Oh - 6/24/17 – 5 Miles

 

Still in training for our fast-approaching AT hiking trip in Maine.  Jim was participating in a cycling event in Boone, NC on Saturday, staying at a cycling friend’s house.  I tagged along.  Early Saturday morning when Jim and Rike left for their ride, Rike’s wife Tammy and I went hiking at Grandfather Mountain State Park.  Our goal was finding the remains of a plane crash near the Daniel Boone Scout Trail. 

Sunshiny hot day, galax blooming profusely, not many people on the trails yet, a little bit of dampness left from the previous night’s rain.  Everything was great – until it wasn’t.

Tammy walked nimbly up this sloped rock face and I followed diagonally up the middle crack, keeping one hand on the higher ledge and holding my hiking poles in the other.  I paused and said, “This is going to be hard to come back down” (not exactly in those words). My hiking poles were hindering me and I wished I could toss them out of the way.  At that same moment, my left foot slipped on the wet surface and I fell forward – hard.  I thought, I’m about to break my nose on this rock. 

I landed full face down and slid on my stomach to the tree at the edge of the rock.  My nose was spared, as were my teeth, but my lip was bloody.  I tried to get up, but my left arm wasn’t cooperating. I wrangled around the other way to a sitting position.  Tammy hadn’t seen me fall but she had certainly heard it. She hurried over to me and tentatively asked, “Are you okay?”

Well, let’s see.  I remembered from a wilderness first aid course many years ago that the first thing you do is nothing, just stay still and assess the situation. I had some impressive scrapes on my legs.  My bleeding lip gave the appearance of a Walking Dead extra.  The big problem was my left arm:  I found that I could bend it at the elbow but could not move it from the shoulder.  Maybe it’s just badly bruised? Clearly our hike plan was turning around. 

Turning around and hiking out 2.5 miles.  Holding my arm immobile across my chest was going to be difficult, so we made a primitive sling out of my bandanna (thank you, Girl Scouts training) and I used one hiking pole while Tammy took the other.  She was calm, cool and collected through this entire process (a medical professional). Two-and-a-half miles gently and steadily downhill, not too bad, but occasionally I stumbled on a rock or root, my arm zinged with pain, and Tammy cringed just a little.  We kept up a steady chatter of distraction, even talked about recipes, until we arrived back at the parking area.

We called the guys, who had completed their bike race, and met them at the house.  Tammy fixed me up with a really good sling and we drove back to Charlotte rather than go through the ER in Boone. 

Verdict:  shoulder broken in two places, including the humeral head.  Treatment was to stay in a sling for 4 weeks. No AT hiking in Maine for me.

(Note: This occurred one year ago. After several months of doing nothing and then serious physical therapy, I’ve recovered 99% range of motion; it’s a little harder to scratch my back!) 

“Always watch where you are going. Otherwise, you may step on a piece of the Forest that was left out by mistake.” ~Winnie-the-Pooh