CALGARY — A hiking excursion took a serious turn after a man impaled himself with a trekking pole in a freak accident.David Cifaldi, a 32-year-old emergency room nurse, was ascending Granite Peak, Montana’s highest mountain, with two friends on July 20 when he suddenly slipped on some rocks and landed on the pole.At that point, Cifaldi and his friends were ten miles into the trek up the 12,799-foot peak.“I just slipped on some rocks,” Cifaldi told KTMF.“It was just kind of a freak thing.”After getting up and dusting himself off, Cifaldi noticed one of his trekking poles had pierced his side..“I think my nurse brain kicked in pretty quick. I was able to feel the trekking pole through my skin,” he told Backpacker magazine, adding that he took several quick breaths to determine if the pole had pierced his chest or lung.“As soon as I was able to self-assess and establish that this was not life-threatening right now, I was pretty convinced I was going to get off that mountain under my own power.”The three hikers then decided to leave the pole lodged in Cifaldi’s body and began the descent down Granite Peak’s rugged terrain — more than ten miles — to reach the trailhead and get help.One of Cifaldi’s friends used a satellite communicator to contact local search and rescue while another stayed with Cifaldi to help him navigate the descent.“David navigated the plateau’s snowfields and boulder fields, made his way down past Mystic Lake, and reached the trailhead entirely under his own power — never once complaining, staying in remarkably high spirits,” Cifaldi’s friend Jesse Ross wrote on a GoFundMe page he set up for Cifaldi.“Near Mystic Lake, he even asked one of us to hike ahead and warn other hikers, so no children would have to see the wound.”.Cifaldi reached the trailhead after more than a six-hour hike and was taken to a hospital before being transferred to Intermountain Health in Billings, where the pole was finally removed.“All told, it was in place for 8–9 hours from the fall to removal,” Ross said.“David is now receiving ongoing care, with the possibility of surgery still to come.”Cifaldi himself stated he was “very lucky” and that if the pole had been “a couple of inches the other way, it would be a different story.”He is now recovering but is facing “significant medical bills.”The GoFundMe campaign set up to raise money for his medical expenses has so far raised US$4,364 toward its US$8,000 goal.
