Disaster in Paradise!!!!!!!
um can we please have the story on these?
Hmm story time... I apologize in advance for the extremely cheesy prose.
So RRO (Matt and Amy), me, gama888(for those that remember him) and a bunch of others are over in Fontainebleau this fall with the girl in the photos, Alicia. She is a pretty new climber having mostly climbed in the gym. Font would seem to be an ideal place to bring her for her first outdoor trip. It has thousands of easy problems, the circuits make it easy to find them, the landings are soft and sandy, there are hard problems next to the easy ones so everyone could work on cool stuff in the same area, and it is in France. Little did we know how epic a bouldering trip could become.....
The first couple of days are awesome. It is just an endless exploration of amazing problems in a beautiful setting, the psyche is high and everybody is having tons of fun. The wine is cheaper than water, the gite is an incredible bargain. We have a fireplace, a dishwasher, laundry, multiple rooms, a full kitchen all for cheaper than camping.
Things were good...too good, it was like the calm before the storm.
The next day it rained a bunch in the early morning so we went to Apremont. This area has the most problems of any area in Font and they are densely packed on a series of hillsides. They get full sun and wind, so they dry quickly. The downside is that due to their density, this area lacks the flat sandy landings that most of Font has. It was a setting for disaster....
Alicia was inspired by our total disregard for personal safety as we hucked ourselves up warm-ups above jagged landings. A few hours into the session she found herself halfway up a pretty high problem and completely stuck on the sequence. We were spotting and a little worried. She didn't yet posses the intuitive understanding of how to fall and though we had some pads there were jagged rocks all ever the place. She thought about climbing down but then got the psyche on and moved upward, giving it everything she had. And she messed the sequence and started to barn door off. There was a quick intake of breath as the spotters tried to guess where she would be falling. Time was frozen for a second. She pushed off and made her mistake. She leapt for a boulder rather than the pads. It wasn't as far a fall to the boulder but the pads are soft and surrounded by spotters. As she hit, the weird angle forced her ankle to collapse. She yelped.
We helped her up and within a few minutes we all knew she had sprained her ankle badly. She didn't realize it though, never having sprained an ankle before, and was still optimistic saying that she would just take the rest of the day off and climb the next day.
That night her ankle swelled up to the size of a grapefruit and was black and fluid filled. She knew the climbing part of the trip was over but somehow managed to keep her psyche up and figured she was still in a beautiful place with good people.
To many this would be the worst thing that could happen, but the worst was yet to come….
On the last day she was supposed to be there we went to Bas Cuvier (the Roadside of Font). As usual it was pretty packed with climbers from all over the world. Alicia hung with us for a while and eventually limped off to explore the forest a bit. She noticed little lizards around and put her energy into trying to catch some.
For a while she was unsuccessful. Then she saw a black and white tail of a lizard sticking out from beneath a log. Figuring she had the drop on this one, her hand shot out and she grabber its tail. As she pulled it into view she realized that this was no lizard but tiny black and white snake. The snake, upset at being grabbed hissed and promptly turned around and bit her on the hand. Tiny pinpricks broke her flesh. Ow, she yelled. Pissed she grabbed the thing by the neck, so it couldn’t bite her anymore and walked over to where Matt and Amy were climbing.
“Are there any poisonous snakes around here?” She yelled out.
Matt and Amy, not knowing that she had already been bit, turned around to see her carrying a snake. Matt yelled, “ I don’t know but probably”
The snake was furiously trying to turn around to bite again so Alicia hucked into the bushes, and told Matt and Amy it bit her. They promptly sent her to find me and Aaron, since he could speak French,
Upon finding us,(working this rad sloper dyno problem) she told us what happened. Seeing that we were 40 minutes from Paris in a crowded area I figured there were no poisonous snakes around, but we had Aaron ask anyway.
The old French guy only said one word to us, “Hospital”
We were surprised and asked him if he was sure, it was such a small snake, and she felt fine, and the temps were perfect. He then said, “Tough luck, Hospital”
So Aaron and Alicia drove the ten minutes into Font. While they were driving Alicia’s hand started to hurt and swell up. By the time they found the hospital, which luckily was on the edge of town we were on. It was hurting a lot and she was starting to panic.
Aaron dropped her off at the emergency room and went to park the car. Not speaking French she couldn’t convince the receptionist to pay attention to her. The woman was on the phone and kept saying something in French and pointing to the chairs. So Alicia, in a cold sweat sat down. The receptionist continued a leisurely conversation and finally set the phone down and turn to her. Alicia said, “Viper” and pantomimed fangs going into her hand. The receptionist turned white and leapt up. She grabbed Alicia by the hand and pulled her into the emergency room.
By the time Aaron got inside, Alicia was gone. He was told he couldn’t see her and to come back in 4 hours. So he returned to the boulder field and told us the story. She would miss her flight but she could just get the next we figured. We thought we would just pick her up and take her to the airport in 4 hours.
Well when we showed up at the hospital they let us see her. Her arm was extremely swollen to her shoulder, and she was physically sick. They put marks on her arm and it had apparently swollen up to her shoulder in less than an hour. She was happy to see us. We tried to get the lowdown from the doctors but our French wasn’t good enough. They kicked us out shortly thereafter and then told us to come back in the morning.
So we did, figuring it would work through her system and we would take her to the airport in the morning. When we showed up at the hospital and asked for her they told us the doctor would talk to us. We were shocked, the doctor????? Was she still alive???? What was going on?????
The doctor finally came out and answered some of our questions in broken English. She was alive but the swelling went over her shoulder into her chest the night before, almost killing her. She was probably going to be fine but was still in a critical state. We could only see her one at a time and only for a half an hour.
So each of us when in to talk to Alicia. She didn’t look to good and told us jokingly that they kept asking her if she wanted Valium for her nerves but the failed to communicate that she was in serious danger so she wasn’t nervous, just in pain. The morphine was helping with that. Then this morning she realized that she almost died the night before and now she wanted the Valium.
Over the next five days we visited for the hour a day they let us and she slowing got better. She was eventually released and flew back to the US as quickly as possible. She is still climbing but probably not as likely to chase lizards.
(The only good thing to result from this epic mess was that Matt and Amy had to stay for a few more days to make sure she was OK.)
Back from the Dead!
It was an Asp. Shakespeare referred to it's poisen in Cleopatra I think. I guess there are only 3 poisenous snakes in Europe and they all go under the generic name of viper. They use the same anit-venom for all three. Alicia got three seperate doses of anti-venom.
don't get bit by snakes big or small.
don't get bit by snakes big or small.
Back from the Dead!
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longlegsrule
- Posts: 1799
- Joined: Sat Jan 25, 2003 7:21 pm
Holy SHIT. Shit, Shit, SHIT!!!
Of course this will never happen to me. You'll never catch me running off into the brush to play with lizards or snakes. Unless...by play...I mean stomp their brains out.
What a nightmare for that poor girl! Talk about a run of bad luck...
Of course this will never happen to me. You'll never catch me running off into the brush to play with lizards or snakes. Unless...by play...I mean stomp their brains out.
What a nightmare for that poor girl! Talk about a run of bad luck...
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha