Carne Mountain to High Pass (page 21)

I wiggled my toes and they moved. Thank God, I thought ... it wasn't going to be that bad after all.

Setting my socks aside, I used both hands to push the big rock part way off my leg. There was a shallow cut oozing a little blood about six-inches above my ankle. I remember pausing and hoping that was all there was before I pushed the rock off the rest of the way. Then I saw what I had feared – a sharp edge had slit my ankle, laying it open to the bone. Deep red blood rushed from the cut and I felt myself grow faint at the realization of the extent of the puncture.

I recall clearly saying to myself, 'No! You can't do this. You can't panic! You have to stay calm and do first aid.' I knew that I had to do two things immediately – ice and compress the wound.

Well, there was plenty of ice all around me, wasn't there? But the compression ...   Regretfully, I took my freshly washed socks and folded one to lay over the injury, then wrapped the other around my ankle as tightly as I could. Looking about, I spied a small pool in a streamlet nearby, gathered up my belongings and hobbled over to it. Plunging my foot into the two-foot-deep pool, I saw the outer sock was already bloody. Faced with a serious injury that was, at the very least, going to end the hike, I was sitting there getting angry about having to soil the socks I'd just washed. Another symptom of impeding shock, I realized. I had to hold myself together ... figuratively and literally.

That water was so damned cold! I sat there for over 20-minutes, pulling my foot out when I could no longer bear it, then plunging it back in. Finally the bleeding slowed and I unwrapped the socks and looked at the hole just above my exposed ankle bone. Examining it carefully, I realized I was unbelievably lucky that the bone hadn't been broken. I found that I could put my index finger into the hole up to the first knuckle joint. And I could see something white in there and thought it had to be the end of my leg bone before realizing that it was hard tissue, ligament or tendon.

Somehow it struck me that I had to close the wound. If I was at a hospital, that's what they would do. They would sew it up.

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