Trip Report
Helicopter rescue in the south of France

by David C
Saturday November 29, 2014 9:16am
  Trip Report Views: 2,853
David C 		About the Author
David C is a trad climber from UK.

Comments
RyanD

climber
  Nov 29, 2014 - 10:18am PT
Wow!

I don't know if you are lucky or not but you are alive.

Probably lucky.

Great story.

What was the final prognosis on your back?
David C

Trad climber
UK
Author's Reply  Nov 29, 2014 - 10:33am PT
I lost about an inch in height. But I'm still climbing.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
  Nov 29, 2014 - 11:24am PT

A TR from hell where the pain is balanced out by a great ironic talent. TFPU!
Ezra Ellis

Trad climber
North wet, and Da souf
  Nov 29, 2014 - 06:26pm PT
Glad you are mostly ok, a really nice write up!
Thanks!
nah000

climber
now/here
  Nov 29, 2014 - 06:57pm PT
well written... thank you.

glad to hear you are still using all four limbs...
thebravecowboy

climber
The Good Places
  Nov 29, 2014 - 08:08pm PT
I am happy for you!
Mungeclimber

Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
  Nov 30, 2014 - 12:17am PT
so, what happened after the seafood dish? How long were you there when your belongings were returned? did you fly home? see another doc? climb the next day?
David C

Trad climber
UK
Author's Reply  Nov 30, 2014 - 12:56am PT
Our stuff was returned in the middle of the night. I laid in the tent immobile for a week until i could move. Then we got the boat out and the train back to the UK.

My main problem now is snowboarding. I must never land a jump with my spine vertical. This is ok on real jumps, but a sudden 3 inch drop in poor visibility isn't nice.
John Duffield

Mountain climber
New York
  Nov 30, 2014 - 09:34am PT
wow, Thanks!
wheatBeer

Social climber
TheBronx
  Nov 30, 2014 - 10:06am PT
Give us a run down on the injury and recovery. Where the French not up for fixing you up? Isn't all of Europe on government healthcare?
David C

Trad climber
UK
Author's Reply  Nov 30, 2014 - 01:57pm PT
It was awhile ago. I'm fine except I can never suffer a jolt of any form to my lower back.

Healthcare in each country can be very different - and I don't think it helped that we were not locals. Their only concern was if the damage was enough for me to end up in a wheelchair, once they proved it wasn't I was on my own. It the end I simply returned to the UK.
phylp

Trad climber
Upland, CA
  Nov 30, 2014 - 04:46pm PT
This is a great fiction story. Except it's not fiction. It really happened to you, which is horrifying. I'm glad you survived OK.

The thing that really annoys me about this story is how they basically kicked you out of the hospital in your condition. Someone should have arranged emergency transport for you. Isn't this one function of foreign embassys? You'd think the British Embassy could do something to help one of its citizens in an emergency.
David C

Trad climber
UK
Author's Reply  Dec 23, 2014 - 04:12pm PT
I guess we could have asked for help in Paris, but we were separated from our money and other stuff.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
  Dec 23, 2014 - 06:08pm PT
Wow, remind me not to get injured in France. That was some third world
merde, that. The term 'at sixes and sevens' springs to mind. Glad
you pulled through, despite the 'help'.
WBraun

climber
  Dec 23, 2014 - 07:19pm PT
LOL David

That's some funny writing about being in the midst of a horrendous epic.

Thank God you didn't become paralyzed .....
neebee

Social climber
calif/texas
  Dec 24, 2014 - 12:17am PT
hey there say, david c... wow, just saw this...

oh my... :O

thank god you are okay, now...
(well, if you take care of your back, as you say)...
graniteclimber

Trad climber
The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division
  Dec 24, 2014 - 01:51pm PT
We land and I’m gently extracted from the chopper onto a trolley. Then the fighting starts. Raised voices become screams. Screams lead to pushing. Pushing to punches. Apparently we have landed at the wrong hospital and they won’t have me. I need to go to another hospital. The chopper won’t or can’t take me. Why this leads to a punch-up between my rescuers and the hospital staff I don’t know. I’m left lying confused in the sun.

What the f*#k!?
clinker

Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
  Dec 24, 2014 - 03:39pm PT
F*#k France.
Daphne

Trad climber
Northern California
  Jan 1, 2015 - 10:55am PT
I'd bookmarked this to get to it later and just did. Wow. We need to retire the word "epic".

I am so glad to hear that your health has returned to the point you describe. I wish you many years of climbing, and thanks for the report which will live in my bones.
Rick A

climber
Boulder, Colorado
  Jan 1, 2015 - 11:25am PT
Wow. Glad you're mending after that ordeal: an amazing story, very well told, producing an equal measure of grimaces and laughs.

It brought back memories from my first visit in 1976. When Gramicci and I first arrived at the beach at En Vau in 1976, laden with ropes and gear, a young woman arose out of the water, diving mask in hand, and strolled toward us.

She was topless, of course,and she was a vision like Botticelli's Venus, but more beautiful.

She looked me right in the eye and smiled as she walked past.

David C

Trad climber
UK
Author's Reply  Jan 27, 2015 - 01:11am PT
Thanks for all the nice words.
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