This blog describes an accident I suffered on a mountain hike in Romsdal, Norway and its aftermath. In over 50 years of adventures in mountains I am pleased to say it was my only significant injury and resulted in the need to be airlifted to safety. While I would have preferred to have avoided the accident I am fortunate to be able to say that there was a good outcome from what was in many ways a very positive experience.
Saturday 31st August 2024
David, Yohan and I had ascended from Veggandal car park to the Blanebba peak, about 5 km away. We had lingered at the viewpoint on the ridge below the peak to take in the views whenever this was made possible by brief intermittent gaps in the dense swirling mist.
We descended from the peak around 4pm making good progress along the ridge back to the viewpoint and then to the waymark indicating the start of the steep, rocky descent. Although the path was rocky and occasionally required the use of hands it was not exposed or particularly challenging. However, danger is never far away in the mountains and on reflection I think I was moving a little too quickly for the terrain because at around 5pm I had a slight stumble. Possibly due to the weight of my rucksack I lost balance and tumbled forwards on a flat, sloping ledge. In the process of the fall my left boot bent backwards underneath me. As I tumbled forwards my knee bent causing my thigh and all my weight to bear down and crush my badly angled foot as I came to a halt. I had not heard a crack but the ankle immediately felt sore. Dave and Yohan encouraged me to take a few moments to gather and compose myself before I attempted to discover whether I could bear weight on the foot. I grabbed my nearby poles and cautiously stood up. Although my foot was sore I was relieved to discover that I could stand on it.
We resumed our descent and I was able to slowly move down the trail including a few rocky sections requiring use of hands. I was able to use my left foot without undue pain provided it was not angled up or down or to either side and this slowed our progress considerably. It was not long before I wrenched the affected foot on an angled rock causing a searing pain to shoot up my leg, sending me to the ground.
Dave and Yohan urged me not to attempt to pick up my pace and to always lead with my right foot, the good one. However, the terrain involved scrambling manoeuvres in places and it was impossible to avoid angling the foot at times. After a second wrench of the left foot they kindly agreed to take my rucksack and camera bag to ease the pressure on my foot and this was a great help. The waymark on the flat section below still seemed a long way off and I became depressed by the fact that whenever I checked the distance reading on my Garmin watch it never seemed to change.
There was to be one further agonising wrench of the foot before we reached the waymark at the start of the flat section. I felt encouraged at this point and confident in the knowledge that I would be able to make better progress across the lengthy, flat stretch before the final 1.5km of steep descent to the valley and the car. My spirits lifted with the good progress we made as I carefully negotiated each step along the flat section. However, not far from the Hestheia waymark indicating the start of the long final descent, I jarred my leg for a 4th time when the rock on which I planted my pole sank away in the mud. Excruciating pain was followed by realisation that my limited mobility was now drastically reduced and only the smallest of steps was possible.
When we reached the waymark in the fading light I knew that the long descent from this point would be impossible and shared this with Yohan and David who had been ever so supportive. We had ascended the same way in the morning and I was acutely aware that the descent would involve huge steps between blocks of rock and I simply could not face the prospect of this and the risk of incurring further injury to my ankle.
I noted that we were on open, flat ground at this point at the waymark post and decided to call the owner of the house we were renting to ask his advice. Fortunately there was signal and Rolph was home. I explained my predicament and Rolph gave me the emergency number to call in Norway. My call to 113 was picked up promptly and I explained the situation to the lady on the line. She asked for our precise location and David read out the latitude and longitude bearings from the map on his mobile. The lady on the call assured me that help would be on its way but that it might take some time. If a helicopter was available it would be sent to collect me. Alternatively, a mountain rescue team would be sent up from the valley to me. She said she would call me with more information as soon as she had it and suggested that if I could continue down safely without making my injury worse that I should do so.
David, Yohan and I discussed the situation and I decided to proceed with the descent as best I could. Progress was now far more difficult and painful for me and progress was minimal. The light was fading fast by this point. After about 15 minutes my phone rang and it was the lady from the emergency service to explain that a helicopter was on its way and would arrive in about 20 minutes. She asked me to move to flat, open ground as much as possible and to be prepared to wave a torch or mobile torch light when I saw it. She said I should not be discouraged if the helicopter moved away because this was normal practice while they made a plan for recovery of the stranded person. We immediately agreed I should retrace my steps to the waymark we had left on the flat terrain about 50 yards or less above us to be ready for the helicopter. Yohan kindly offered to accompany me. It took about 15 minutes to return to the Hestheia waymark and it was now dark. I placed my mobile phone close by in readiness for the helicopter arrival and thanked Yohan who returned to David to resume the long descent in the dark with the aid of David’s head torch and also his mobile phone torch.
Sitting by the waymark in the gloom I felt very alone but I knew I could not have descended further and this together with the reassuring tone of the lady at the Emergency Service kept fear and anxiety at bay. Expecting the temperature to plunge rapidly I grabbed my cag from my rucksack and put it on. I felt bad about David and Yohan having to negotiate the long descent in the dark knowing that they would have comfortably made it in good light if they had not chosen to support me. It was not long before I heard the familiar thudding sound of a helicopter approaching. I turned round and saw the helicopter approaching from the direction we had walked to reach this point. I quickly grabbed my phone but could not open the torch app quickly enough before the helicopter passed overhead and into the distance beyond before halting to hover far away across the valley. I frantically opened the torch and began waving it not knowing whether it could be seen from such a distance. As the helicopter continued to hover I began to fear that the opportunity for me to be airlifted off the mountain had gone.
After what seemed an age the helicopter began to return in my direction. There came a point on its approach when I sensed I may have been spotted because it began to lose height and was approaching precisely in my direction. I could see 2 lights waving below me and assumed these were from David and Yohan. They confirmed to me later that they never used their lights on their descent but that they had been earnestly trying to wave the helicopter upwards in my direction. They thought the helicopter had seen them and have no idea what the lights I saw were from.
The helicopter paused about 60 metres in front of me. I was frantically waving my phone torch from side to side. After a short while the helicopter approached low and slowly passed a little to my left and hovered about 5 metres off the ground with its searchlight on, presumably seeking a suitable spot to land. It then retreated back to the spot about 60 metres in front of me where it hovered again for what seemed an age. I was standing up holding on to the waymark post, waving my phone torch wondering if my rescue was in the balance. My spirits lifted enormously when the helicopter slowly moved forward again, this time to my right and once again with its searchlight beam fully on. As it approached the wind from its rotors blew my rucksack about 10 metres away while I hung on to the post with one arm and my hat with the other. The helicopter was hovering close to the ground about 15 yards to the right of me. I could see a body moving about in the main cabin. Then, when it was just about a metre or so above the ground, I noticed that the person in the main cabin was lying flat on the floor and stretching his head outside to check for any obstacles below that could impede landing and take off. Then, to my great relief, the helicopter landed. The sole passenger, dressed in hi-vis gear jumped out, ran towards me and said my name. I motioned towards my backpack. Igbjorn said he would recover my bag and that I should carry my poles. He then grabbed my left arm over his shoulder and with his support I hopped on my good foot over to the open door of the helicopter and scrambled aboard.
I felt huge relief once inside. Igbjorn helped me into the sole seat, removed the boot and sock from my injured foot and upon examining the swelling and bruising confirmed I had made the right decision not to descend any further. He had a lovely, reassuring smile and when I asked him, he informed me that he was an anaesthetist who also is involved in mountain rescue. Igbjorn explained we would land at Andelsnes nearby where an ambulance would be waiting for me.
On landing I was placed on a stretcher bed and with my belongings transferred to the ambulance. The medics in the ambulance were absolutely lovely. Synne drove the vehicle and Morde was inside with me. We stopped first to be seen very briefly by a doctor who referred us to the hospital in Molde about an hour’s drive away including a ferry crossing. During the journey Morde took readings for my temperature, pulse and blood pressure and also performed a simple pin prick blood test. The results were all encouraging.
After chatting with Morde for a while my thoughts turned to the awkward subject of the phone call I urgently needed to make to my wife Karen who at that moment was relaxing on a houseboat on Dale Hollow Lake in the USA oblivious to my plight. How do you explain to a loved one why you are calling from an ambulance without causing distress? I was also conscious of the need to get word to David and Yohan that I was OK and in good hands. Although it did not occur to me at the time, there had been another occasion,in 2014, when I’d had to make a difficult call to Karen. Karen had also been in the USA on that occasion and I was in the UK when I’d had to flee from our flat at 2 in the morning to escape a bad fire that had spontaneously ignited from an electrical fault. I called her from the car park outside dressed only in pyjama pants after the fire brigade had dealt with the fire and checked on me for any ill effects. Luckily, I had awoken from a deep sleep needing to pee when I became aware of the fire detectors in our flat beeping very loudly and discovered the fire before the smoke and fumes had time to cause any damage to my lungs.
I decided to plunge in and tapped WhatsApp to video call Karen. Before I could get very far she shrieked “Are you in an ambulance” to which I responded by explaining that I was OK after a fall on the mountain, that I had hurt my leg but that everything else was OK. “But how did you get to the ambulance?” Karen demanded. There was nothing else I could say and so I dived straight in. “I was rescued by a helicopter and the ambulance is taking me to a hospital to get my foot checked over.” “A helicopter! You were airlifted off the mountain!” By this time some of Karen’s friends appeared on Karen’s screen. Everyone wanted to know what the dickens had happened. I continued to provide whatever assurances I could that I was OK, and managed to remember to ask Karen before the call ended to call David or Yohan to let them know she had heard from me and that I was in good hands.
Sunday 1st September
I think we arrived at the hospital in Molde around midnight. I was told they would be taking x rays of the injured foot but that priority was being given to someone with serious injuries to the head and elsewhere. X rays were taken around 2am and as Molde hospital has no orthopaedic unit these were sent electronically to the hospital in Kristiansund about an hour’s drive away. I was informed around this time that I had a fracture in my lower fibula above the ankle joint. My message to Yohan and Dave sharing this news was sent at half past midnight. Yohan expressed surprise that I’d managed to get as far as I did with the fracture. After about half an hour or so I was informed by the radiographer that the doctor at Kristiansund had requested further x ray images to be taken. Once these were reviewed by the Kristiansund doctor I was informed I was to be taken there by ambulance for surgery on a fractured ankle.
Saturday night and the early hours of Sunday had been a very busy time for the ambulance service and so we did not leave Molde hospital until about 4 am. On arrival at Kristiansund hospital I was taken to one of the wards. A doctor expressed concern at the swelling which he suspected would delay surgery and asked if I was in pain and would like morphine. Apart from the occasions on the descent when I had wrenched the leg I had not felt great pain and so declined the strong painkilling drugs. At around 10 am I was taken for a CT Scan. At 11am, Marianna, the consultant orthopaedic surgeon, visited me to explain that I needed to have surgery on the fracture but this could not be carried out until the serious swelling around my foot and lower leg had receded. To aid this I was to have surgery within the next hour or so to have an external fixation applied to the foot. This turns out to be a frame comprising of 4 carbon fibre tubes connected at various angles around the foot and bolted in to the bones of my large toe, heel (both sides) and two points on my shin. The purpose of the external fixation is to stabilise the foot and facilitate the necessary reduction in swelling before carrying out the definitive surgery to insert a plate and screws to heal the fracture.
The surgery was fine and I was soon back in the ward under instruction to keep my left foot higher than my heart at all times with the aid of several large pillows. I was not in great pain. The consultant surgeon visited me the next morning to check on me and explained that the final surgery was likely to be between 5 and 8 days hence depending on the success with overcoming the swelling. She also confirmed that my ligaments were not damaged.
I had been in regular contact with David and Yohan and it was arranged that they would visit me the next day (Monday) at the regular visiting time between 5 and 7pm. This would entail a 4 hour round trip including a ferry crossing in each direction. It was ever so good of them to interrupt the well laid plans for our itinerary but I don’t know what I would have done without it given that the vast majority of my gear including all my photographic equipment was at the house we were renting at Torvik near the town of Isfjorden. Karen had wisely sown the seeds with David, Yohan and me to take the opportunity of their visit to reconfigure my luggage such that Yohan could take my case as additional luggage when he returned to the UK which was to be a few days before David and I were due to end the trip. This meant that David and Yohan would be bringing to the hospital all of my belongings from the house apart from food and beers! It took a long time for Karen’s idea to dawn on me and for me to realise that if we planned these things well I could be left just with my backpack containing a few essentials, enough for me to last a few days and make the journey home. The Eureka moment occurred while David and Yohan were bedside and on reflection this was a game changer for me. Towards the end of the visit by Dave and Yohan we quickly took a few minutes to do the necessary jiggery pokery with my luggage until I was left with no more than it was likely I could manage once discharged from the hospital.
Friday 6th September
On the morning of Friday 6th September the consultant on the duty round confirmed my swelling had reduced sufficiently for the fracture surgery to take place. A few minutes later Marianna visited me to see the progress with the reduced swelling for herself. She informed me that the surgery would be scheduled for the next day.
Saturday 7th September
At 10.30 on Saturday morning Harvard, an extremely friendly and helpful ward nurse, helped me to take a shower in readiness for the surgery. He tied a plastic bag over the external fixation to prevent water entering the injured area. He then left me to shower. At 11am I was taken up to the operating theatre reception area where the surgical support team took turns to introduce themselves to me and transferred me to a surgical bed. Once inside the theatre the anaesthetist administered the necessary drugs. I immediately felt a warm wave descending rapidly through the lower half of my body where, in no time at all I lost all sense of feeling. The nurses on the surgical team then set about removing the external fixation. Once this had been removed Lars and Souhalen the surgeons then worked their magic. They had informed me earlier that they would not know whether I would require a cast or boot afterwards until they could assess the quality of my bones during the final surgery. I felt like a child on Christmas morning when, after they had completed their work, they confirmed that the condition of my bones was such that I would need neither a cast nor a boot but would be able to leave the hospital in a day or so bearing weight on my injured foot and with the aid only of a walking stick. I was so thrilled to hear this wonderful news and lost no time sharing it with Karen and my family and close friends.
Monday 9th / Tuesday 10th September
On Monday I was given some advice and training by a physiotherapist on how to walk with the aid of crutches. I was discharged the next day with a stock of painkillers and supporting paperwork confirming my suitability to fly home. The care and treatment I received from the staff at Kristiansund Hospital had been absolutely first class and is something I will always remember and be grateful for.
I learnt from Yohan and David later that they made the entire final descent in darkness, not reaching the car park until 10.30pm. All in all I count my blessings to have had such good hiking pals and to be in the hands of excellent professionals in Norway.
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