The Incident

Danielle and I were psyched to go climbing at Rocky Mountain National Park on her day off. We hiked up there and enjoyed a pleasant hike that felt really short because we were so intently reviewing medical knowledge (I know, we're big dorks). We were warming up on this beautiful boulder with Long's Peak in the background. We decided to go check out some of the other boulders before coming back to this boulder to work on our project, Potato Chip (V7), on the other side of this boulder that was significantly less scary than normal due to the snow. I was hiking in flip flops because I was lazy and I always hike in flip flops. I was hiking over a rather large boulder in the talus field when my wet-from-snow foot slipped and I fell approximately a foot, my flops fell off, I skinned the toe on my right foot and I landed on the curved point of a rock with my bare foot. I called for danielle, but she didn't hear me. I crawled over to a snow field and set up camp. I felt nauseous and stunned and waited for the pain to subside. Danielle came back and bandaged my skinned toe, which was bleeding everywhere. She'd even brought some saline bullets in her first aid kit. But my other foot was the one that I was worried about. Finally, the pain started to subside and I began to think maybe I would climb some more. Then, I tried to stand on it. I winced, sat back down and knew it was broken. At the 5th metatarsal head to be exact. Shannon and Ben, two of Danielle's friends, came to the rescue and helped me get out. I rock hopped and shoulder assisted most of the way over the talus, and then Ben piggy backed me the rest of the way out to the main trail.
I walked on it for at least 3 miles because I was still in pain when using Danielle's shoulder as an assist and it would have gone much slower. So I just tried to walk on the inner part of my foot and the heel. I always kind of wondered if I would be one of the people who would tough it out hike on a broken bone if I had to. Now I know that I can. I did tear up a bit when at times I could feel the bones grinding. We stopped at DQ because we really deserved it by this point. Danielle took me to the Boulder hospital where we found out that I have an unstable oblique fracture on my 5th metatarsal head. No more hiking in flip flops, especially on talus fields. I already hate the crutches and I'm hating the fact that I won't be able to climb for quite awhile.