Coincidence?

Falling down a hill makes for rather unusual teatime conversation. I was seated in the living room with my mother and her best friend Harriett recounting my teenage version of “How I spent my summer holidays.” I had just returned from spending the summer on a mountain climbing course in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. After the usual rhapsodic praise for the natural beauty of the area, Harriett asked me what my strongest memory from the summer was. I paused, debating whether to tell the truth. The conversation got even odder before I finished my reply – in a way that I never anticipated…. or perhaps I had?

I struggled whether to relate that I had been in a climbing accident, but I forged ahead and decided better now than later. The day had started well. We were engaged in a free climb without ropes on Cascade Mountain. We had started the climb at about 0730 -0800 o’clock. The climb is graded as moderate…until the last two kilometres where the hiking trail ends at the rocky basin of C Level Cirque, also known as the Cascade Amphitheatre. The Cascade Amphitheatre is the remains of an old, long dead volcano. This is where climbers must show due respect to the mountain, which on occasion will claim careless climbers who do not.  

The barely visible path to the summit is covered in “scree,” a combination of loose gravel and boulders – large and small - which makes this last leg a “difficult” climb. There was still snow at this altitude. As we climbed the air grew colder. We were trudging toward the summit in ankle to knee depth snow, which made for slippery conditions. Sometimes the Amphitheatre even claims those who have no quarrel with it.

As this was a “free climb” we were wearing army boots, rather than climbing boots, and the hard plastic soles slipped on the wet scree as the snow melted in the sun. After falling on my face twice I asked our group leader Marcel whether we might take a safer route to the summit where I had seen some bare earth. He directed me to stay with the group and to not worry about it as we were almost at the summit. I summoned up my courage, gritted my teeth and leaned into the steep climb. 

I felt the rock move before I had even put my full weight on it. I tried to rebalance, over corrected, and lost my balance. The next 10 or 15 seconds are forever imprinted on my memory. As I twisted in mid-air trying to regain my balance I thudded into the gravel, feeling the sharp, tiny rocks bite into my shoulder and the side of my face. The air rushed out of my lungs as I saw my feet go over my head – and I was away – rolling head over heels for about 250, 300 metres – who knows? I felt every bang and every boulder and rock on the way down the slope. Oddly enough, I felt more impact than sharp pain. Time slowed down, and I wondered what each bump would bring as I “caught air” between the rocks and the gravel as I rolled down the slope.  

The last few bangs were the hardest, and I felt a sudden pain in my left temple – and I briefly passed out. The metal hat badge I was wearing cut into my temple – and perhaps took some of the force of blow away from the last boulder. The next thing that I knew I saw two female hikers about twenty feet away. I struggled to get up they were waving me to stay still. They came rushing over speaking rapidly in what I realized was German. They held me down to assess my injuries. I could taste the saltiness and the sensed the oddly iron smell of blood. I wondered whether I had done some major damage as I could not see properly out of my left eye. I clawed at my face, and it came away covered in blood. I realized that the metal badge that had cut into my temple had opened a huge cut that had gushed blood over the left side of my face and down my shirt. It may also have saved my life as it bent but appeared to have protected my left temple from taking the full force of the final blow. 

The two ladies, one in her forties, and the other – perhaps in her early twenties were digging through their backpacks looking for something to staunch the blood. The younger lady brought over a box of Kotex “Light Days” pads and applied one, and then another to my temple which was starting to sting. I felt vaguely embarrassed. I did not want the guys to see me like this. However, when I tried to sit up, I felt woozy, nauseous, and laid right back down. The two ladies, whose names I never learned, stabilized me until I could be walked down the 10-kilometre trail between two of my course mates. 

Things got hazy then, and I have no memory of the trip back down the mountain. My next memory is of sitting on a medical examination table with a light shinning in my face and trying to turn my head away from whomever was examining me. I was told that I probably had a concussion, I was given two Tylenol, and I was told to go to bed for the remainder of the day. All that I remember of the next day is that I was extremely sensitive to light and noise. The next day I was up on the mountain again. 

My mother’s mouth, which was usually always in motion, resembled a fish gasping for water. Harriett went white, looked like she was going to say something, and then stopped and she stared at Harriett. Harriett spoke very softly. 

“Was there anything else?”

I did a rapid calculation. 

“Was it worth it, or would I be laughed at?”

“Well, there was another accident a week or so later.” 

Harriett’s face had an intense glow as she stared deep into my eyes. 

“Tell me, tell me about it.”

“Well… we lost someone.”

My mother looked aghast. 

“What do you mean ‘lost someone’?” she managed to croak out.

“Well, one of the other guys, Charlie, fell not far from where I fell…”

“And…” coached Harriett.

“Well, he was killed,” I said in a whisper.  

Harriett’s eyes bored into mine.

“What day was that?”  

“A Tuesday, um… I think.”

“Date?”

“July 25.”

“Tell me what you were doing that day, it’s important.” Now her face was white.

So, I launched into the second incident. “In for a penny in for a pound” I thought to myself. I knew that this time I would be laughed at.

I picked up my story about a week later. 

I was frozen against a rock wall, again on Cascade Mountain, but this time roped in as we were ascending a sheer rock face. Without warning I felt immensely tired and helpless, as if a huge thumb was pressing into my chest. A voice seemed to whisper in my ear, “It’s not your time yet.” I raised my knee to place my foot on the next rocky shelf – and it slipped – and I swung in to the rockface – scraping my elbow and my chin. “Had I lost it?”  

It had been a week since my arse-over-tea kettle tumble down C Level Cirque. Truth be told, I was still sore, I still had numerous healing scrapes, and I still had a large yellow and brown bump on my left temple. I was still sensitive to light, and to be totally honest - still rather shaken from my tumble. However, I was determined to prove myself to the other guys. I took a shallow breath, stepped up and felt my feet slip, swinging me into the cliff face again. 

“Holy f*ck that hurt” I said to myself as I felt my temples throb and my ears ring from the force of the blow. Again, I hear the whisper, “It’s not your time.” This time the voice seems to come from right inside my head. Twenty feet above the other guys were getting impatient.

“C’ mon get going, “yah banged your head not your balls. Don’t be such a f*ckin’ pussy.”

I struggled to breathe. Maybe this was a panic attack, but I still felt there was a hand literally pressing into my chest.

The catcalls trailed off as we all looked skyward. We could heat the “whomp, whomp, whomp” of a helicopter coming toward us through the overcast sky. As we were in the middle of a National Park in July this was not an oil exploration trip nor ski tourists. It could only be a rescue chopper. Helicopters were only sent when there was no other option in the uneven peaks and dangerous wind currents. The helicopter passed just above us.  

I heard the voice in my head again. “Go ahead, you are safe now.” I felt a surge of energy pass through me, and I clambered up the last 15 feet while they were still watching the rescue chopper. “Probably some dumb shit tourist,” said Joe as he turned to see me just beside him. 

“How’d you get up here so quickly?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t put any pressure on the rope.”

Jean-Guy, our Swiss mountaineering instructor looked up.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t. The carabiner holding the rope to the last piton is bent and the gate is partway open. You would not have been supported if you had slipped again.”

Trying to be more confident than I really felt, I responded, 

“Well, I am here now” thinking both on firm ground, and apparently back in the group.

We knew that something was wrong when we returned to base camp later that afternoon. The news vehicles with satellite dishes lining our perimeter fence were the first clue. The presence of police and a chaplain at our hut were the second and third clues. One of our course members from another section, Charlie, had fallen from the summit of C Level Cirque, the Amphitheatre – straight down. The police were there to interview each of us individually as to the safety practices followed on the course. We were warned to not speculate on anything to the media, who they were keeping outside the camp perimeter. The chaplain was there, presumably to console us and to offer guidance on how to handle gossip requests from other course members.

As I finished recounting the story Harriett looked very upset. Her voice shaking, she asked,

“What day was that again?”

“Like I said July 25th.”

I noticed tears forming in her eyes with her next question,

“What time?” 

“Um about 1030, maybe 1045, I dunno… why?”

Harriett shuddered, coughed, blew her nose, and drew herself up. 

“I was in London then. It was about 5:30 p.m. local time. My friend Martha and I were going to a show that evening and we were planning on an early supper. I was just about to get onto one  of those red double decker buses in Trafalgar Square when I felt a hand pressing me down onto a bench. A voice in my head whispered that you were in danger and that I was to pray for you.”

Now I went white, sinking into a padded easy chair with my mouth open like a fish. “Whaa…t?” I quickly calculated the time difference – 7 hours – the same moment in time.

Harriett continued, 

“I had a premonition on the day that you fell that you were going to be injured but I had no idea how badly. It had worried me all week, but the premonition was louder on that day. I could not  move off that bench for the next 15 minutes. Suddenly, it was like the hand moved away, and I could move again.”

I shuddered, “You may have saved my life.”

Every July for the last 46 years I think about that summer, and I ask, “Why me?” and “Why Charlie?” They’re all gone now – Charlie, Mom, Harriett. My temples are grey, and the thin scar on my left temple is my only physical reminder. My mental reminders, to coin a phrase are “thicker.” I hate wet gravel. I don’t like the taste and smell of blood nor the sound of helicopters. And then there are still nights when I lie awake, and I ask myself whether it was just a coincidence. I have a ritual. First, I say “I’m sorry” to Charlie, who would have been a grandfather by now, and I say “Thank you” to Harriett – wherever she is. Then I gaze at the old bent metal badge, and I wonder…” What if?”