Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Craig DeMartino
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR00069A
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00:10 Welcome to Celebrating Life in Recovery
00:11 I'm Cheri your host. 00:13 Have you ever thought about, when does recovery end? 00:15 When are you done? When have you done all the steps? 00:18 When can you relax and sit down? 00:20 That is what we are going to talk about today and it 00:21 absolutely the coolest to answer. 00:23 You got to come and join us. 00:53 You know when I first got into recovery I thought that 00:56 there was going to be a time where I could 00:57 just relax about all that. 00:58 At first I thought I would just have to stop doing 01:01 heroine and my recovery would be over. 01:04 Somebody said that if you stop everything is going to 01:07 be okay, well I stopped and I stood there and thought 01:10 wow I wonder if okay feels like this? 01:12 It did not feel okay to me and then I realized that I had 01:16 to do one more thing, and I had to learn how to live 01:20 with out drugs and then I had to learn something else. 01:23 Then I had to learn something else and then we talked about, 01:26 on the season, I ended up with leukemia, 01:29 being diagnosed with cancer. 01:30 Then it is another whole gig so it is really interesting to 01:34 me that in my mind I thought recovery was just doing a 01:37 specific thing for a specific reason. 01:40 Like eating right and living right and sleeping right in 01:44 order to not do the heroine. 01:46 Then I realized that it really is learning life skills so 01:49 that what ever hits me doesn't take me down. 01:51 I want you to really pay attention to this program 01:54 because what is really interesting to me is there is 01:57 nobody that I know that isn't getting hit with something. 02:01 The people that I am falling in love with lately, they get 02:04 hit and they stand back up. 02:06 It is absolutely amazing. So we are going to talk about that. 02:09 I am going to introduce you to a friend of mine, man, 02:11 you are going to be blessed. 02:13 So come on up. 02:15 You know I wanted to say, welcome to the show. 02:17 Thank you, thank you so much for asking me. 02:19 The first time I heard your story I was flipping through, 02:23 I think, U-Tube or something. 02:25 I all of a sudden ran across your testimony and it stopped 02:29 me because I thought I am dealing with a lot of things in 02:32 my life and yet I am looking at you thinking Man! 02:37 So Craig! I'm glad I could do that for you. 02:42 DeMartino and I want you to introduce yourself, 02:46 but not from the point where everybody thinks you're 02:49 going to start, but how did you grow up, who are you? 02:54 That is so fun because it all builds into where 02:57 it ended up anyway. 02:58 Craig DeMartino, born in 03:01 Pennsylvania and grew up a 03:04 typical regular, nothing crazy brother, sister youngest kid. 03:08 I think probably favored a little bit but that is okay too. 03:12 I went to college. 03:14 I married the baby of the family, they are so different. 03:17 We're nice, forget it, it's good. 03:19 It's good to be favorite. 03:20 Went to college and graduated with a degree in photography. 03:24 I wasn't a Christian at that time and didn't go to church. 03:28 I basically did what ever I wanted to do. 03:30 It wasn't bad, I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary, 03:35 other than partying, doing the regular stuff. 03:38 I was definitely focused on me. 03:40 I went to college and then started to work for Associated 03:43 Press and went into journalism mostly, doing photo 03:47 journalism as I got out of school. 03:49 I did that for about eight years and then decided to start 03:52 my own small photo studio in Philadelphia and I did that. 03:55 About that same time a friend of mine was getting married. 03:58 He wanted to have this bachelor party, typical. 04:02 He said but we are going to go rock climbing. 04:05 I was like that is odd, but it is better than strip club 04:09 or whatever, so we went rock climbing. 04:11 So were you a rock climber at the time? 04:12 Not even close, I mean I had seen maybe on National 04:15 Geographic and thought that was insane but no inkling 04:18 to go do it, nothing I didn't know any climbers. 04:21 We went out, he had a friend who was a climber, 04:23 and we went out to this little place in Pennsylvania. 04:26 This real scrappy little cliff and we went climbing. 04:29 It was the first time, my brother was an amazing 04:32 football player and I was really good at art, 04:34 so you see how that would work. 04:37 My dad loved... 04:39 Your dad was like is he gay. Gay Gosh! 04:45 I tried it, I try to play football and they all 04:48 hit you and that is not fun so I was never really 04:51 into sports in school. 04:52 So I went into climbing, and climbing made sense to me. 04:55 All of a sudden it was like click, this light went off. 04:58 I start to pursue it more. 04:59 So you loved it right away? 05:01 I loved at the very first day, while I want to know more 05:03 about this, how this stuff works, 05:05 and I wanted to learn, learn, learn. 05:06 There are a lot of different disciplines in climbing. 05:09 There is rock climbing, which is going straight up a Cliff. 05:12 There is ice climbing, which is going up frozen waterfalls. 05:16 Then there's big wall climbing, which is stuff that takes 05:20 more than a day like El Capitan in Yosemite, large walls 05:23 were it takes multiple days. 05:24 Then there is bouldering, where you climb up a rope and 05:27 climb as far as it is comfortable falling. 05:29 You do not want to fall, that is different for everybody. 05:33 It is really interesting, because I never have looked at 05:36 something and say how bad can I get hurt. 05:38 And how far could I climb? 05:39 How far can I go down before I get hurt? 05:42 That is bouldering, evaluating those risks. 05:45 So I thought I want to be good in all these disciplines. 05:48 I want to do it all, so I did. 05:49 I started to learn everything I could and climbing in 05:52 Pennsylvania was very limiting so I would go up to New York 05:55 climbing in the Shaw gunk's where I learned to climb 06:00 a lot of multi-like pitches routes. 06:01 This is more than one rope laying, most ropes at that time 06:04 were 150 feet, so you can do the math. 06:07 So 300 feet you have to break into two. 06:09 I just start to really fall in love with the whole 06:12 process of moving upward. 06:13 That is what I love about planning is that you are 06:15 problem-solving vertically, that is all you are doing. 06:17 It is very fun and independent thing. 06:20 And in that moment, it's like if I hang in here I am figuring 06:24 out where is my foot going to go next? 06:26 I'm not thinking I'm wondering if the checkbook is balanced. 06:29 I'm focused on the 4 feet around me. 06:32 I think it's beautiful thing to boil your life 06:35 down to that clarity. 06:36 I absolutely loved it and I went out to Yosemite to climb 06:39 with some... It's beautiful. It is. 06:41 Yes it's beautifully, you see this amazing creation there. 06:45 You see the small details, I mean you see plants that grow 06:48 on the sides of 2000 foot cliffs that are coming 06:51 out of a crack, it is like how did they get there? 06:53 You see the swallows that fly on the cliffs. 06:55 You see the animals that move in the cliffs. 06:57 It is an amazing place to be. 06:58 So that became my passion and I loved it. 07:02 I pursued it wholeheartedly, my job fell to the wayside 07:05 and I am a photographer by trade and that is what I do. 07:08 I loved doing that but climbing became this thing where 07:12 this is what I want to be doing so I went out west and 07:16 started climbing out West some. 07:18 I just fell in love with it. 07:19 I came through Colorado to visit an old school 07:22 friend of mine and her husband. 07:23 She said, come and crash on our floor for a while and I did 07:26 that as I was driving back to Philly. 07:27 As I look back, I go Ah this is when God was really doing 07:32 stuff and I had no idea. 07:34 And I was like whatever. 07:35 I was doing my thing and came back through and stayed with 07:37 her and she showed me around Colorado a little bit. 07:40 Just in that front Range area and I fell in love with it. 07:42 Incredible climbing place? Incredible climbing place! 07:44 I took a pen and put it on a map and drew a 50 mile circle 07:48 around Ft. Collins, Loveland area which was where I lived. 07:51 I said okay what is around there, and with in that 50 mile 07:54 radius there were four or five major climbing areas. 07:57 Areas that people go to once in a lifetime. 08:00 I thought that is where want to live. 08:01 So I went home to Philadelphia and thought how do I do this? 08:06 So I just thought I'll pack all my stuff up and go there 08:10 and get a job I guess. 08:12 So I went to Barnes & Noble in Philly where I was living and 08:16 got a paper and went through the Sunday paper from Denver. 08:20 The Denver Post and there was a photography job which never 08:24 happens, you just don't find photography jobs. 08:26 This company in Loveland Colorado. 08:28 So it's perfect? 08:29 I'm not even sure where that is, I had heard of it. 08:32 I called my friend and said where is Loveland and she said 08:34 it's the next town over. 08:35 It's a Christian company and I'm like that is weird, 08:38 but I really want to move there so I'll call them. 08:41 I called them up and they say we closed the process already. 08:45 I said but did you fill it? 08:47 They said no, but I said, can I send my book out? 08:49 And they said yes so I sent my portfolio. 08:51 The art director wanted a secular person. 08:54 He didn't just say that's to the people there. 08:56 They look at my book and he said that's the guy. 08:58 We want that guy. 09:00 So they call me back and we would like to fly 09:01 you out for an interview. 09:03 At the time I had hair down to here, and I thought I should 09:06 clean up so I cut my hair and fly out there. 09:09 My whole thought process is I'll work for them for two 09:12 months, quit and they will pay my moving expenses 09:16 and it'll be awesome. 09:17 So I get out there and they hire me and everything is great. 09:20 They moved me out and I was doing my thing and I meet 09:24 two guys who are climbers. 09:25 They are like, why don't you come climb with us? 09:27 We go out and we are climbing, this is about a month into 09:32 the whole process of me working there. 09:33 The one guy says, have you ever worked for a 09:35 Christian company before? 09:37 I said no, no. 09:39 Your like I would not have done that. 09:41 He said okay here are a few tips, number one you have to 09:44 stop swearing because they get really upset. 09:48 To me from Philadelphia it was my vernacular, 09:53 I just didn't know. 09:54 That is really funny to me because it wasn't that you were 09:58 being rude by swearing, this was just my language. 10:00 F- word was to me an adjective, it was everything to me. 10:04 It worked it did people understood when I said it. 10:07 So I said that's okay it's good to know. 10:10 He said second of all do you even believe in 10:12 what they believe in? 10:14 I'm like, I don't even know what they believe, 10:16 because when they hired me the owner said to me, 10:18 do you know you are going to work for a Christian company? 10:22 I said yes, she said, do you have a problem with that? 10:26 I was like, no as long as you do not have a problem with me. 10:30 As you know a typical, we're cool as long as everybody knows 10:34 where everybody is. 10:35 She said, no we are fine with that. 10:37 She's laughing herself and I'm laughing at myself thinking 10:40 I'm getting over on them. 10:41 So we go through this process and slowly it was open to me 10:45 that I started to work in these churches and photograph 10:49 these youth groups, youth leaders and pastor's. 10:51 I would listen to them talk and I would think, man, 10:53 they have something I don't have. 10:55 I want that and what is that, it is not tangible. 10:58 I do not know what it is. 10:59 I would listen to them talk and listen to their sermons and 11:02 am like, oh I get it, this is a God thing. 11:05 God just slowly worked on my heart and at the time 11:08 I was with Cindy, who later became my wife. 11:11 We were living together. 11:12 So I slowly, we were in college so I slowly introduced 11:16 this information I am getting on a daily basis. 11:19 I'm saying what you think about this? 11:20 What do you think about that? 11:21 I'm thinking she is going to run, but she slowly is like 11:24 that is making sense too. 11:27 So we slowly went down the path together and I thought wow 11:30 were living together, probably we shouldn't do that. 11:33 So we got married and started our faith journey together, 11:37 and started our marriage together, 11:39 it was around the same time. 11:40 So it was cool to get into it and learn together 11:43 and grow together, and we got to a point where 11:46 we were very comfortable. 11:48 It was about two years into our marriage. 11:49 I just have to say for a lot of people they have to grab 11:52 you by the throat and say you stop living together, 11:54 and God says I'll take care of it and I will do it in a way 11:58 that is just gentle and they will know that they are loved. 12:02 It is a whole another thing and I love hearing when 12:06 God does that when someone. 12:07 It just opens your eyes, all the sudden, 12:09 you go, this is wrong. 12:10 You shouldn't do this. 12:11 Not because the group said hey, knock it off, because they 12:15 knew we were living together. 12:16 People knew that, and yet to us with our background, 12:19 it was like what's wrong, were saving money. 12:23 It is actually better than just being casual, 12:26 we are making a commitment, in a worldly sense it actually 12:30 is that you have done the right thing. 12:31 We are saying that I'm going to be with you no matter what. 12:34 We just didn't have that piece of paper. 12:37 We go get married and have a beautiful wedding, 12:39 and our faith grows, everything is great. 12:42 We have our first child, she is awesome and we get even 12:46 tighter, our faith grows. 12:47 After our second child is born our faith hit this plateau, 12:54 we were solid and I believe God had a plan for me. 12:57 I believed all those things but it was very comfortable. 13:01 It was also one of where I would move things around, 13:06 I would say God is important to me, but if it is really sunny 13:09 I'm probably going to go climb instead of go to church. 13:12 If I had the opportunity do something else, 13:15 I'm going to go and do something else. 13:16 I work in a Christian company and I am getting enough stuff, 13:21 it's covered and that was very comfortable to me. 13:24 I saw nothing wrong with it and everything was cool. 13:28 All of a sudden July 21 rolls around of 02 and everything 13:34 comes to a screeching stop because then everything explodes 13:40 apart from me. 13:41 That was when I understood where my faith really was, 13:45 I think. 13:46 Do you want to explain what happened, or do you want to do 13:50 the roll-in and then come back to it? 13:52 I think it would be better if I explained it, 13:56 because if they watch that roll-in, 13:58 they are going to go what? 13:59 So we will show that later go ahead and explain 14:01 what happened on that day. 14:02 You are climbing like crazy. 14:03 Climbing like a fool, just climbing a ton, five days a week 14:07 All over the country, everywhere. 14:09 Cindy and I climbed together all the time. 14:11 Cindy was my best partner up until we had children and then 14:15 we had to tag team stuff. 14:16 What we would do is Cindy would do something one day, 14:18 and I would watch the kids, and then I would do something 14:20 the next day, and she would watch the kids. 14:22 It was awesome, we just worked it all out. 14:25 Climbing partners from people at work? Absolutely! 14:27 Partners at work in the guy who I was climbing with this 14:30 particular day was an older climber who I had met. 14:32 He is a great guy and a good friend. 14:33 Cindy the day before had run a marathon up in the mountains 14:37 up in Leadville, she had run a 50 K. so she was just tired. 14:41 She had run for eight hours basically. 14:43 So I got up and fed the kids breakfast and my friend Steve 14:46 shows up and we pile all the gear in, I kissed everybody 14:49 and Cindy says goodbye and we head up to the mountains, 14:52 Rocky Mountain National Park. 14:53 We are driving up there thinking what we want to do and we 14:56 had a route in mind. 14:58 So we get up there, pack all our stuff and just take off. 15:01 We wanted to climb about 4 miles in the backcountry so we 15:04 hiked back in and it took about 45 minutes to get back 15:07 to the base and we wanted to climb this route on a spiral 15:10 called Sundance Buttress, which is about 1000 feet. 15:13 It will probably take most the day but we thought if we 15:16 really hauled we could get up it pretty quickly. 15:17 So we start off and I felt as we were going out it was weird. 15:20 In retro speck I think I felt really bad that day. 15:23 I felt just weird, but some times when I am nervous about 15:26 climbing, before I do a climb, I get this weird, 15:29 a little bit off and I thought that is all it was. 15:31 And you need to work past that? 15:33 You get used to dealing with fear and compartmentalize, 15:37 saying, okay I don't need that right now, 15:40 so put it behind me. 15:41 Tied in and got everything ready and started up the route. 15:44 We got about three pitches, so roughly 4 or 500 feet, 15:48 somewhere like that. 15:49 We are under a really big roof and we are watching this storm 15:52 come across the valley. 15:53 He and I are just sitting there and as we are talking, 15:55 it starts to get really windy and this is July. 15:58 It's hot and all of a sudden it gets dark and we are watching 16:01 these clouds and it just opens up and starts the hail, 16:04 the rain, grapple, starts blowing all over the place. 16:07 And we are like okay this is nice and were hanging under the 16:10 roof so we are still dry, but we realize we are not going 16:13 to be able to go up because the rocks are wet. 16:15 We rig everything for repelling and we start 16:17 to work our way down. 16:18 Repelling for someone who doesn't know, 16:20 that is just pulling yourself down. Yeah! 16:21 Repelling is basically running the rope through the anchors 16:24 that are there, which are usually bolts are driven into 16:26 the rock on routes like this that are popular. 16:28 You just click your rope through that and repel down, 16:31 pull your rope to the next station and you keep 16:34 repeating that process. 16:35 So three repels and we are back to the ground. 16:38 We get on the ground and the Sun comes back out. 16:41 So we eat some food and walk up the cliff a little bit and 16:44 there were some single pitch climbs, 150 foot climbs 16:47 scattered up the rock. 16:49 My friend Steve knew some of the climbs. 16:51 One of them was a harder route and it was dry and he 16:54 said do you want to try that? 16:56 I thought that would be cool. 16:57 I get my gear together and as we were walking up we said 17:00 climbing has a vernacular just like every sport. 17:03 We were going to top rope, top rope means a person is 17:06 going to go up and anchor the rope at the top of the climb. 17:09 The person down here, but rope is like this so that person is 17:11 lowered and then he belays from the ground. 17:13 Belay is when it runs through a stitch plate and that is how 17:17 you stop the person from falling. 17:18 I was going to go up and he was going to lower me. 17:20 Then Steve would climb and I would belay him from the ground. 17:23 We would do that is many times as they wanted. 17:26 Someone has to go first and get the rope up there. 17:28 Well I never clarified that with Steve, 17:31 He said top rope, so I just heard top rope. 17:33 I tied in and got my gear and started up the rock. 17:36 I get up to the ledge and the ledge was right at 94 feet. 17:40 When I say ledge it wasn't like this, it was about 2 inches, 17:44 it was a fold in the rock, 17:46 and there were two bolts driven in. 17:48 Got on that ledge and clipped in, and again part of that 17:51 vernacular is off belay, and I'm off belay. 17:54 He said okay, and here is where we really separated. 17:58 He took me off belay, which means he took the rope out. 18:02 Now we are not attached anymore, I'm attached to the rock. 18:06 Clipped in with two pieces of webbing, 18:07 hanging from these bolts. 18:09 I am getting the rope ready to run through the anchor 18:12 because I think he's going to lower me to the ground. 18:15 What he thought was, Craig is going to bring me up to the 18:18 ledge, and we will repel off together like we had just done. 18:21 But we never talked about that, so he went to his backpack, 18:23 got his shoes and was tying his shoes to climb up. 18:27 So I get everything ready to lower and I yell down, 18:30 hey I'm ready it's all you. 18:33 He yells up okay, I hear okay. 18:35 He is not hooked in and I go like that and look. 18:38 He says okay, okay great so I unclip, pull in the anchor to 18:43 un-weight it and unclip myself and push. 18:46 When I push back I realize I'm falling. 18:49 So sometimes... 18:51 Because usually you would feel the person holding on. 18:54 As soon as I push off the anchor I feel the weight, 18:57 I feel the weight going to the rope. 18:58 Previously, when I had been lowered, sometimes there's slack 19:02 in the system, and climbing ropes are dynamic. 19:05 They stretch about 15% of their length, so sometimes you get 19:08 rope stretch, sometimes there's just slack in the system. 19:10 The person may be stepping back from the cliff 19:12 and they tripped or something. 19:13 I'm okay there's just a lot of slack, 19:15 and it's going to go tight in a second here. 19:17 I'm watching the anchor go, and I'm like no it's not 19:20 going to go tight and I just looked. 19:22 From bouldering, without a rope, when you come off of 19:24 something you push to get away from the rock. 19:27 Because you don't want to hit the rock? 19:28 You don't want to hit the rock, 19:29 you don't want to break your ankles. 19:30 You want to see where you are going, so I did that, 19:32 that was my first reaction was to push, 19:34 and I pushed and turned and I saw the hillside over here. 19:37 I remember the clarity, I can still tell you the trees, 19:40 boulders, everything, I 19:42 mean I can see everything. 19:44 I'm like nope I'm still going and the next thing I realize 19:48 is that I am on my back looking back up at the climb I had 19:52 just done, I could see everything. 19:53 Steve is in my Peripheral vision screaming at me. 19:56 What had happened was, as I went, pushed, as I tipped back, 20:00 I was falling like that and basically got horizontal. 20:04 If you hit the ground, my feet were at 94 feet, 20:06 my head was around 100 feet. 20:10 To hit the ground going that fast sideways everything 20:13 would just crush and explode and you would die instantly. 20:16 Well as I was coming back there was a dead tree and I hit 20:19 the tree with my face and it's scraped me up like that. 20:21 But as it's scraped me it also stood me and so I landed 20:24 actually standing straight up and down on the talus. 20:27 The talus for people who don't know, talus is blocks about 20:31 the size of this table actually but jumbled, so they had come 20:34 off a cliff at one point and they get all jumbled and it 20:37 is very uneven and I hit those rocks and crumbled into those 20:41 and fell backwards. 20:42 Didn't have a helmet on, because they don't wear a helmet 20:45 when I climb, even to this day I don't wear helmet. 20:48 But I crumbled down and fell backwards and my feet took 20:50 the brunt of everything. 20:51 When I hit the ground, I hit it so hard that my shoes, 20:54 my climbing shoes exploded. 20:56 I shattered both my feet were shattered and dislocated. 21:00 They came out of the skin. 21:02 Then my back snapped at L2, I hit so hard that L2 actually 21:06 disintegrated, it disappeared and blew into my spinal canal. 21:09 Then the shock wave went up and broke my neck at C6 and 21:13 punctured my lung, I broke my ribs, I busted this, 21:16 I broke the collar bone. 21:18 It's just like everything broke all the way down? 21:21 The shock wave just rips right out of your body because 21:22 it has to exit somehow. 21:24 I just crumbled onto the ground and there I am laying. 21:27 And still aware. 21:29 Still aware very much awake, but I was very confused. 21:33 When I realized what was going on, I didn't even know 21:37 I fell at first and he is screaming at me. 21:39 He is trying to get the bleeding stopped because I broke, 21:40 I tore through the arteries in my feet. 21:42 He is trying to get the bleeding stopped 21:44 and to keep me awake. 21:45 So he is not panicking, he is doing as much as he can. 21:49 We get the bleeding slowed and he puts a tourniquet on my 21:53 legs and he realizes we are four miles in the backcountry. 21:58 We're out here, he's going to die. 22:02 He realizes I need to run the 4 miles. 22:06 I can't even imagine, I mean he loves you, you are friends? 22:10 Yeah were good friends and end he is realizing, there is 22:13 blood all over the place, his legs are annihilated, 22:16 I know that he is really hurt and probably has internal 22:19 injuries and I keep telling him how bad my back hurts. 22:21 My feet were so broken I couldn't even feel them. 22:24 I said please get me off these rocks. 22:28 So he sticks, now I have no back, my neck is broken, 22:31 he sticks his arms under here and he drags me down 22:35 the talus to some dirt to get me level again. 22:37 And lays me there and gets me as comfortable as he can. 22:40 He realizes he has to run to the truck, drive to town, 22:44 get help and come back. 22:45 Probably at least an hour and a half to do that. 22:50 I'm losing blood constantly. 22:52 So he gets up and he takes off, we agreed that was 22:56 the best thing to do. 22:58 He gets his shoes and starts to go and gets about 20 yards 23:02 down the trail and stops turns around and comes back, 23:05 in his backpack he had a cell phone which he never packed 23:07 his cell phone in his life. 23:09 Picks it up, we are next to a thousand foot cliff 23:11 in the backcountry. 23:12 Because you don't take your cell phone because 23:13 you never get a signal. 23:14 You never get signals and we are in the park, 23:16 and he turns his phone on and gets a signal. 23:19 He dials 911 and gets the operator on the first go. 23:21 She is like what happened where are you? 23:23 What is your emergency? 23:24 He goes through the whole thing, 23:26 and she is like okay don't move, 23:27 stay right where you are. 23:28 She patches him through to Rocky Mountain rescue, 23:32 they are the guys that run all the rescues in the park. 23:34 The guy who picks the phone up, his name is Eric. 23:36 Eric is not only the head of Rocky Mountain rescue, 23:39 he is a climber. 23:40 The year before a guy had fallen in the gully next to me 23:45 and died so Eric had done that body carry out. 23:48 He knew exactly what climb I was on, he said he's on this 23:51 climb called White Man and he is at the base of it. 23:54 Eric is like I know where he is. I know exactly where he's at. 23:57 So there is no wasting time, he doesn't have to figure out? 24:00 And the beauty is he doesn't have to run all the way in, 24:03 there is an access road that the Park service 24:05 is allowed to use. 24:06 He drives the access road he is literally at my side in 24:09 40 minutes after I crash. 24:11 He is sitting there saying okay, 24:13 this is how it is going to work. 24:15 The call has already gone out. 24:16 Rocky Mountain rescue is coming in. 24:18 They are trying to do as much as they can to control the 24:21 bleeding, to control the trauma, and I'm waiting and waiting. 24:24 Long story short is that it takes them about five hours 24:27 to get the litter, get me and a litter, get me down 24:31 past the talus field to where they can get me on a trail 24:33 and then take me to a clearing where the chopper can land. 24:37 I fell at 2:30 so they said we have this very small window 24:41 of getting him to a chopper, if we don't get him to a 24:43 chopper, he is probably going to die. 24:45 Now they are not telling me this, 24:46 they are telling each other that. 24:47 The only reason I knew that some thing was screwy was 24:51 he said to me that a certain amount of time had gone by. 24:54 My world is just right here, I'm seeing Eric over here, 24:57 I am looking up and Steve would be there. 24:59 Eric came to me at one point and said, do you want me to 25:02 call your wife? 25:03 I was like no don't call my wife, my gosh don't, no, no, no. 25:07 Thinking that she is going to worry. 25:09 This will freak her out. 25:11 This will freak me out and so I thought don't do that. 25:14 More time goes by and he gets back to my peripheral and says 25:18 Craig what do you think about calling your wife? 25:20 I'm like, why did you ask me twice? 25:23 Then I thought well, that's fine. 25:26 He said later, I figured you were going to die at any moment. 25:30 We were just trying to get you down so we could get you 25:32 in the chopper, but I figured you had lost so much blood, 25:34 so much shock, so much trauma. 25:36 I knew your lungs were busted so that we could not give you 25:38 any med's, because when your lungs are collapsed if they give 25:41 you morphine and it depresses your breathing even more. 25:43 So I just figured this is a matter of time. 25:46 He is so wrecked. 25:48 Cindy gets the call, which is hideous. 25:50 I can't even imagine her getting that call. 25:53 It even makes me want to cry now because I'm thinking, man. 25:57 What a shock it was. 25:58 And her knowing. 26:00 Well he was careful, he said Craig fell, 26:03 his ankles are broken. 26:05 But he didn't say that Craig hit the ground, Craig fell. 26:07 So she thought that I took a big fall and swung into the 26:10 rock and smashed my feet. 26:11 She's like okay, how bad is he hurt? 26:13 He's hurt pretty bad, but they are in the middle of a rescue 26:16 you should probably get up here. 26:18 So she got in her car, remember she had run that race. 26:21 She was really sore and said man I got up there and I ran 26:24 four miles and didn't even think about being sore anymore. 26:27 I just hoofed it in there and she said the scale of the 26:31 rescue is what set her off. 26:32 She was like, why are there so many people here? 26:34 She gets up there and all of a sudden she's in my peripheral 26:38 vision, she said the kids are good. 26:40 She knows what I'm going to be thinking about, the kids, 26:43 wife, what's going on, your confused. 26:45 We talked for a little bit and she told me later I just 26:48 wanted Eric to do his job, I didn't want to talk to you, 26:51 I wanted him to concentrate on getting you down there. 26:55 They get me to the Valley, get me on a wheeled gurney at 26:58 that point and hoof it to a clearing where the helicopter 27:02 literally within 10 minutes is going to shut down and say 27:05 they can't fly out because the cliffs are too close. 27:08 So they get me out to this clearing, chopper lands, 27:11 get to me ready to go, put me into the helicopter, 27:14 and the last thing I remember of that day is that the flight 27:18 nurse looked at me and said have you had any medication? 27:21 I said no, he is like okay. 27:24 I remember seeing him do the syringe, boom that was it. 27:28 I guess from talking to them I have talked with them and 27:32 actually gave them my address and phone number and all 27:35 that fun stuff but I don't remember that. 27:37 The next thing I remember is coming to in intensive care. 27:42 Being tied down and not being able to move. 27:45 Tied down so you don't pull things out. 27:47 Yeah I had a trache tube because I could not breathe on my own. 27:52 So I was tied to the bed at that point is where this roll-in 27:56 will makes sense because they will see me being able 27:59 to talk to the nurse but just talk with my hands and my 28:01 fingers and that was about it. 28:03 We are going to go ahead and take a break. 28:05 We will show the roll-in then come back in. 28:07 That is great. 28:08 I can't even hardly breathe right now. 28:11 We will be right back, stay with us! |
Revised 2014-12-17