Well guys, this is my NZ story about me almost taking a long dirt nap...you're in for a long one....
When I was guiding in New Zealand back in 2001, we had a chance to get in a good hunt or two for ourselves while we were down there. We had already done a backpack tahr hunt earlier and after a couple of months of hard work, we decided we were going to do a Chamois hunt. We made the drive to the pilot's house that afternoon and loaded all the gear into the chopper. The plan was for myself and George to fly into the area, hunt for 4 days, and then when Jamie was going to fly back into the area, pick us up, and leave Allen (George's Dad) and a client there in the already established camp that we were to leave... So, we load up and fly a LONG ways into the Southrn Alps. We get to the landing area, put the bird down and start unloading gear as fast as we could because it was raining and getting dark quick and Jamie wanted to get outta there before the weather got any worse. We said our goodbyes and goodlucks, and said he'll be back in 5 days to do the swap. So, George and I got camp set up, and got stuff ready for the start of the hunt in the morn. Thats when we realized that we had forgot the emergency radio in the rush to unload the chopper. Oh well, lets not worry too much about it.. we have Chamois and Tahr to worry about...
Next morn, we start the hunt by hunting the drainage above camp. A few hours into the hunt, we see a small mob of good Chamois up the drainage and several great bull tahr further up the mountain. After a couple of hours of postioning, we are finally within range of the Chamois.. To make a long story a little shorter, I make the best shot of my life and anchor a great chamois from 420 yrds away across a deep gourge. After a couple of hrs of some serious climbing, we make it to the chamois, take a ton of pics in the rain, and cape and quarter the Chamois. It was still reasonably early (1:30 or so) so we don the now heavy packs and continue on uphill to see if we can find those tahr bulls we had glassed earlier. After a couple more hours of hard hiking, no luck.. So, we make the decision to start making our way back to camp which is now a good 2 hr hike below us.. We are also taking a diff way down than the way we came up in hopes of running into the tahr. We come to really steep wall that is pretty much sheer with just a foot wide trail worn into the rock from the tahr. George goes across first and makes it. He says it's just too dangerous to try and sugested I find an altarnate route. We find a slightly less of a sheer drop-off a little further down. I start across the trail, and am about halfway when all hell breaks loose..
The trail that I was walking on crumbles and breaks free and pulls my left foot off the trail completely. This in turn makes me loose balance and then because of the 50 or so pounds in my packframe, throws me right off the cliff before I can do anything. I free fall for about 35 ft before hitting the bottom of the cliff and then begin an out of control end-over-end series of cartwheels down the scree slope. After a couple of hundred feet of this, I finally hit a rock big enough to stop me. At first I didn't realize anything was wrong. I tried to stand up and play it off. Not a chance.. I fell back down and began to see that I had alot more than just a few cuts and bumps. After George made his way down to me, we began to realize that we were in a really bad situation. I had broke my right ankle, totally dislocated my left hip, torn all my glut muscles from the bone on the right side of my butt, fractured my pelvis in 4 spots, and had several serious cuts on various spots all over me and was bleeding everywhere. After we saw that I was not going to die of internal bleeding, Geoge tried something that I will never forget. He put me on my back, put his foot in my stomach, and tried for all he was worth to pull my hip back into socket. Let me tell you, I think I saw the Lord's face! I was on the verge of going out. The pain was indescrible. After several failed attempts, we made the decision that George would take off to camp and bring what he could back up to me. With that, when George was about to leave, he said that I had to make it to the flat area about 200 yrds below where I landed. 200 long yards of large boulders all at a steep angle downhill. And with that, I began a crawl that was out of this world. Lets just say that the pain was so bad on this crawl, I was begging to die right there. I finally made the 200 yards in about 2 hours. Geoge showed back up shortly thereafter and made camp. From there we made the decision that it would be too dangerous for George to try and hike out of there alone. If he were to have an accident while he was hiking out solo, things could get ALOT worse than they already are. We decided to wait it out till Jamie was to show back up and pick up up. The next 4 days went as slowly as a day could ever go. Constant rain, absolutely no pain meds, and nothing to do but lie in my one man tent and wait it out. Lets just say that those 4 days are real fuzzy in my mind! The only thing that kept us sane was a couple of Kea parrots that kept us company.
Finally on the fourth day, I heard the sweetest sound I had ever heard in my entire life.. Jamie in the chopper.. They had found us. Because the drainage was so steep, he could not put the bird down. He had to stay in and keep it at full power with just one skid on the ground as George and Allen loaded me up. After we got airborne, Jamie radioed what had happened to the nearest clinic and told them that we were on our way. Jamie landed the helo right onto the lawn of the clinic. They were waiting for us. They got me unloaded and took me in. After several tests, they concluded that I was in far worse shape that first realized. They then radioed for the Lifeflight chopper out of Christchurch. Soon, the Lifeflight was there and I was on my way to the big hospital. I was given a horse's size dose of Morphine on the way over there. Once there, they wheeled me in and concluded that I had sustained a good amount of internal bleeding as well as all the other bad things that I mentioned earlier. I was wheeled into surgary and had the ankle set in a cast, the hip put back into place, and had my glute muscle reattached to the floor of my pelvis. NOT FUN!!! I was in the hospital for 9 days in the same ward as all the old men that had fallen and hurt their hips and such. I was the youngest person on the floor by 50 yrs! Talk about snoring and griping!!
I caught up with every TV show on every channel, and became quite accquainted with several of the cute Kiwi nurses who had to sponge bath me!! And on top of that, I was interviewed by the local news station. They had heard about my fall and they just happed to be doing a special about the recent rash of climbing deaths in the region! Go figure. I was local celeb for the day when the news came on later that night!! Ended up being that there had been something like 10 deaths in that area since the begining of the year. I was one of the lucky ones.
After 9 LONG days in the hospital, I was finally let out. My buddy Billy, who was there guiding with me, picked me up and took me back to the lodge 5 hours away. Talk about a long 10 days!
In the end, I ended up staying there for another couple of months and just helping with the skinning and such. Cuz I sure as heck couldn't do any guiding! We even went to Austrailia for a week. I just hobbled around the beach on my crutches and played the sempathy card with all the hot Aussie girls!!
And luckiest of all, my traveler's insurance covered everything.. Lifeflight, hospital bills, etc... Trust me, if ya ever go out of the country, the smartest thing you can do is buy some insurance. You never know what will happen. And because I couldn't bend at the hip for long periods, the insurance company got ahold of Air New Zealand and arranged for me to fly all the way back to TX in first class! Now that was livin!!
Got back and began the LONG road of physical rehab. LONG ROAD!! I was in that for a long time. But, time heals and as of today, I am completely healed up. The hip bother me a little when the weather changes, but I get it checked out twice per year, and as of now, i am good to go.
I told ya it was a helluva story!!

Here is the Chamois I took that day..

Ouch. Character building stuff, you must be a resiliant bastard. You obviously had no choice but to deal with it and handle it, I hope I never have to test my mettle like that.

Scott, fine story and you did what you had too..I'd share a campfire with you anytime..
Another example of why insurance is needed..

Mike

George told most of the same story and it indeed sounded painful and quite aweful. You were lucky you weren't killed.

So you know George pretty well now with all that cuddling for warmth. (only joking of course).

Congrats on your recovery - you were indeed very lucky in some respects.

Hope you will be fit enough to do many more hunts.

Beautiful Chamois too!

You going back again for a hunt?

Your a luky man.

Thanks guys.. I just posted my story to show how dangerous those Alps can be over there.. A very unlucky hunter found that out last week when it ended his life.. The ONLY thing that saved my ass was the heavy packframe I had on.. it had around 40 to 50 lbs of gear and clothes inside and that is what I landed on. Otherwise I might not have been so lucky. I still thank my stars every day...
NitroX, luckily we BOTH had 1 man tents!!! so there wasn't any man snuggling going on... It wasn't too terribly cold .. Just glad it didn't happen in July! Otherwise I would just have to deni what really went on during that wait! God knows it would have sucked to been hurting like hell AND cold!!J/K..
But I'm all healed up and don't have any problems with the leg or hip.. I got to the Doc 2 times per year and get everything checked out just to be on the safe side..they are still amazed that I lived thru that crap.

Gryphon, one of these days I'll go back to NZ.. I could hunt Tahr and Chamois every year if I had the time! I think the next hunt I'll have with George is a Buff hunt in Northern OZ on their new peice of property.. I have GOT to try that hunt SOON (Like as in the next year or 2)!!

I think the one thing this expirence taught me was to never break the golden rule of moutain huntg.. ALWAYS have at least 3 points of contact with the ground at all times.. It'll save your ass! I broke it and it almost cost me mine...