Severe Climbing Accident

Saturday, Jason and a couple of his friends decided to wake up early and go mountain climbing. They left at 7:30am and were expected to arrive home around 1:30pm. I'm not sure the exact name of the climbing, but it is where you wear a harness and climb attached to a cable on the side of the mountain. Since the guys were off doing their thing, Segolene and I decided to go dirndl shopping for me. Everyone was happy.

At around 12pm, Sego gets a phone call from her husband, Tait, while I was in the dressing room. I heard her get serious and asked if he was okay, something about a helicopter, and her saying "oh my gosh!" I poked my head of out the dressing room and immediately asked if it was Jason (the most injury prone person I know). No it wasn't, thank God!

When she got off the phone, she said that she didn't know much but that Mark had taken a serious fall off the mountain. He had separated from Jason and Tait and when he didn't meet them at the meeting point, they knew he must have been in trouble. Jason and Tait went back and climbed the way that Mark had gone, only to find him beneath a waterfall on an embankment. He said that they thought he had broken both of his legs and possibly an arm.

Sego and I immediately thought of Julie, Mark's wife (and our friend) who just had a baby 4 weeks ago. We asked if they had called her yet and they said no, since they didn't know the severity of his injuries. Sick to our stomachs but knowing there was nothing we could do but wait, Sego and I continued shopping. I ended up finding the prettiest dirndl (which I will post about later). Finally, a couple hours later, Jason and Tait arrived home. This is when I found out the severity of Mark's fall.

On the way to the hospital (we had to bring Mark's wallet with his insurance card and his phone to Julie), Jason explained that he and Tait had started to climb part of the mountain. Mark decided to go a different route but would meet at the top at a certain meeting point. When Jason and Tait got there, they waited a while but Mark was no where to be found. They decided to go back and to retrace his steps. Upon climbing, they noticed Mark on an embankment beneath a waterfall. Jason climbed down to help him and noticed that he was soaking wet, cold, and badly injured. Tait climbed towards the top of the mountain so he could get reception to call the paramedics.

Jason explained that Mark was climbing and is afraid of heights. He got to a point where he needed to climb over a canyon and decided he wanted to go around. He unhooked himself from the cable and tried to walk around but the ground beneath him gave out and he fell several meters onto the top of the waterfall. The water then pushed him over the edge of the waterfall,  falling 30 feet onto the rocks and pool below. He never lost consciousness (thank God for helmets!) and pulled himself out of the water and army-crawled several meters off the embankment and up part of the mountain, so the guys would see him. When Jason got there, he said that it looked like he had broken both legs and possibly an arm. About an hour of waiting later, the helicopter finally arrived. Since they were near the top of the mountain and a beer hut was nearby, there were power lines directly above Mark. With pinpoint accuracy, the helicopter swooped down in the valley, under the power lines and between trees, and lifted Mark to safety. They brought him to the Salzburg Hospital. Jason then had to make the tough call to Julie and tell her about the accident and to meet Mark at the hospital.

When we finally arrived to the hospital and saw Julie, she was very composed. She explained that the doctor told her that he had broken a foot/ankle and that the other leg was severely bruised and the knee dislocated. She said that he was beaten up pretty good but that he would be okay. Praise God!!

Mark is still in the hospital and will have surgery on his foot later this week. After surgery, he will stay another 5-7 days.

Today, Jason emailed me and explained that Mark had made the newspaper. If you are interested, HERE is the link. Feel free to copy and paste the text into Google Translate, since it is in German.

Here are some pictures that Tait took on his cell phone:

If you look closely, you can see the cable Mark should have gone across. He fell from the point on the right above the waterfall and then into the water at the top and over the edge of the waterfall.

Here's another view of the waterfall.

Here's a picture of Mark getting loaded up onto the stretcher.

Thank God that Mark is okay! Things could have been much worse and we thank God that Jason and Tait were there and that the paramedics and helicopter pilot were so great. Truly a miracle!!

P.S. If you look at the picture at the beginning of this blog, you can see Jason (with a backpack) to the right watching Mark getting loaded up. This picture was from the newspaper article.