Up until late Monday afternoon I had no idea who the pictured people were… then I found out. Angels… Good Samaritans… call them what you will but they saved my life.
I was hiking in South Yuba River State Park by Hoyt’s Crossing near Nevada City, California. The river is gorgeous, but in spots very deep even in October. It’s cold but refreshing… until it’s not.
Walking back to the trailhead I got disoriented as the trail, seemingly in-and-out, has a ton of cutaways. I was told it was tough getting back but my arrogance paid no attention to various warnings. I inadvertently took a cutaway. As it went deeper down the ravine toward the river I knew it was going to be difficult to get back up. I could see the bridge in the distance. Bridge meant parking lot and it wasn’t that far away… but I had to get back up the walls of granite to get there. I started scampering across a large sheer granite face, slipped and tumbled 20 feet or so into the water. A deep hole, I was trapped by slick rock and weighted down by my small backpack and hiking boots. I was able to toss the backpack up the rocks and it stuck there so that was helpful. But I couldn’t get a grip of anything. I was in there for 10 minutes and thought this might be it but somehow survival instincts, the fear of my bloated corpse being found next May and strength (thank you Club Loveland) got me to slowly inch my way up with wet hiking boots, planting each foot slightly higher on their corresponding rocks going like a slow spider monkey up the crevice splitting the water below.
I sat there for a moment then calculated a route to get under the bridge. I could see the other side had stairs, so I figured this side did too. But first, while slowly making my way across the granite, I looked up to see where I was at and crushed my head into a sheer rock. Turned out the gash is about 4 inches long, and a lot of blood started seeping into my right eye. These angels saw me and started coaching me – the now me functioning as a one-eyed pirate only my patch was blood – around to the other side of the bridge to see if there were stairs. There was nothing but brambles and a 10-foot wall of granite. The brambles lead back under the upper part of the bridge to more rocks and as for the wall of granite there was no way I was going to be able to scale it. I tried to get my way around it but this was not possible without falling into the water again.
I was shaking from the cold, bleeding, and desperate. I yelled to them I had to swim over, so they coached me. I am not a great swimmer, but there was no other option. The water was running slow, thick, cold and deep. I got on my back, tried to put my backpack on my stomach like an otter, but that did not work, especially since in my delirium I had forgotten about the heaviness of my soaked hiking boots which basically act like anvils strapped to your feet. I planned on getting into the water slightly upstream to slide in behind a rock close to the other side but miscalculated due to the heaviness of my boots. I had to kick like hell to keep afloat and get over there. I did end up scraping the rock but used it as leverage to push off for the final 15 or so feet.
Exhausted, shaking even more now and soaked to the bone. they took my stuff and held it as I tried to get myself back to some sort of stability. I still had about 10 yards of more rocks to climb over to get to the truncated stairs (they just die a craggy death at a certain point, I think there may have been a flood that took the rest out at one point). I don’t know how long we sat there but my phone came to life (yes the iPhone survived its pair of dips into the river) and the little girl started asking about the picture I have of my old dog as my opening screen. The two women asked about what I did for a living and about my DSLR (the DSLR probably won’t recover but by some sort of miracle the SD-Card did). The little girl was just being curious, but it was important as it helped me to continue talking and try not to crash. Once they thought I was ready to go, they slowly guided me up the hill, one in front and the other pair behind. Once up there I told them my car was only about a football field up the hill so I could walk up to it. They insisted I get in their car to drive me up the hill. That was key… as once I got there I realized somewhere… the fall, the water, the trail through the brambles, wherever… I had lost the key to the rental.
This, despite it being a bit of an inconvenience later, turned out to be a blessing. I was in no shape to drive and there was no cell reception for me to call the car rental agency. There was no way I would have been able to make the 8 miles of very mountainous windy road back to the civilization of Nevada City. I was in and out of consciousness, losing the pattern of conversation, as they drove me to their choice of the National Exchange Hotel (extremely nice hotel BTW). One of them went in with me to help get me a room… yes, my wallet survived the ordeal too. I am not sure how long it took as time was not something I was tracking well, but I do remember her getting a little “speed it up here” as I was not doing well and the front desk guy, nice as he was, was not understanding my condition. She was working him for a discount and I also remember trying to see if I could get hotel points for the stay and completely forgetting which hotel chains where I have a membership.
Mumbly mumbly mumbly points discount mumbly mumbly mumbly
No sir we don’t. This is a boutique hotel.
My nurse/angel told me “Your color is coming back. I have to tell you weren’t pale, you were grey. I was really concerned.” She helped me get to the room, gave me specific instructions to take a warmish shower, go eat something, drink something warm and get under the covers. Then told me she’d call me later to see how I was doing.
I was still shaking. It was bad. I managed to get out of my wet clothes only to discover my body was covered with scratches and bruises, my left ankle had swelled significantly, and my left toe was red, purple and blue. Yes, the gash was still bleeding but not as much… and I had also cracked the top of my head too but that blood had stopped and didn’t run into an eye so I never really felt it. It took another 30 minutes before I felt in control of my balance and the bleeding to cease enough I could put on my bloody hat to go across the street to eat. I had a Korean protein bowl and some hot tea. There was some irony as the car key I lost was for a Hyundai.
I was still a bit dizzy but back in my room managed to call the rental company – National – who did a fabulous job. National dispatched a tow truck as I got the call from my angels to make sure I was doing okay. I sent the tow truck driver a pin where the car was, told them where the car was… and they couldn’t find it. I finally messaged them and National to call the sheriff so they could get better guidance as it was clear by his description he had gone to the wrong spot and would not come back to Nevada City so I could show him where the car sat (his words to me were ‘I am done talking to you” then he hung up).
Every 90 minutes to 2 hours I got a message or call from National… but again, being forced to wake up was a blessing as I probably needed to be in concussion protocol anyway. They found the car at 4AM. If I had been there with the car for nearly 12 hours locked out of it, if I had the perception and fight I would have ended up calling 911 (FYI – the iPhone’s SOS tried to work under that cold water but was not successful) or just died.
So where are the injury photos? We want blood and bruises!
No. I am not posting photos here of my injuries as it is not me that is important in this tale. It’s the three pictured – two women who decided to take a child to see the beautiful South Yuba River on a Monday afternoon and ended up saving a life – mine. Yes I do know their names but am opting not to publish them – they suffered enough already dealing with me. If people had the mythical nine lives like a cat I think I used four or five of them in one day.
I am eternally grateful… and I am certain they are probably tired of me telling them that. In my delirium, it was the only thing I could think of uttering and I am sure I did it about 20 times.
The moral to this tale is this – take care of one another. Even when you think you’re done, someone is there to pick you up and dust you off. In my case it was wring me out, but you get it.
Fancy Boys Club 