‘‘Tis but a flesh wound’: Man impaled by trekking pole hikes 10 miles off mountain to safety

A Montana nurse was impaled by his trekking pole when he slipped during a hike while climbing the state’s highest peak. But he never panicked.

Rather than being airlifted to an area hospital, David Cifaldi opted to walk 10 miles through rugged terrain and descend 5,000 feet with his two hiking companions before getting help.

Cifaldi, 32, was ascending Granite Peak, Montana’s tallest mountain at 12,799 feet, on July 20. He slipped on rocks about 10 miles into the climb and about two miles from the summit, KTMF reported.

As he stood up, Cifaldi said he realized one trekking pole was still on the ground while the other 44-inch, steel-tipped pole had pierced his side, according to the television station.

“It was just kind of a freak thing,” said Cifaldi, who is a wound nurse at St. Vincent Regional Hospital in Billings. “This thing is sticking out of me.”

The pole was jutting at an angle into his left side below his armpit and through his back, The New York Times reported.

Cifaldi did not panic.

“I think my nurse brain clicked on,” Cifaldi, 32, told KTMF. “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.”

Cifaldi said he was not in pain, no blood was evident, and he was able to take deep breaths, the Times reported. While one friend sent an SOS signal on a GPS phone, the other took pictures of the wound so Cifaldi could assess it, according to the newspaper.

He ruled out being airlifted off the mountain by helicopter, noting that it was too expensive.

“I was like, ‘We’ve got to get off this mountain.’ And they’re both like, ‘I don’t know about that,’” Cifaldi told The Associated Press about his friends’ initial reaction. “I’m pretty confident this is outside my chest wall. ’Tis but a flesh wound.”

Cifaldo’s friend Jesse Ross warned hikers coming up the mountain that a man was coming down the trail with a “gnarly” looking injury but that he was OK, the Times reported. His other friend, Brad Reich, monitored the puncture after Cifaldi gave him a quick lesson in emergency medicine, according to the newspaper.

The trek took six hours before the trio reached the trailhead at Mystic Lake, the Times reported.

Despite the bizarre injury, Cifaldi said he did not believe he was in danger. He told the newspaper he knew he was going to make it when the trio stopped for a snack and “started making shish kebab jokes.”

“By the end, they were calling me ‘Bob’ on the way out,” Cifaldi told the Times.

Looking to keep expenses to a minimum, Cifaldi refused an ambulance and had his friends drive him to the hospital, according to the Times.

Cifaldi was then transferred to the hospital where he works in Billings, where doctors removed the pole, KTMF reported.

“The only reason it was possible at all was his confidence,” Ross told the AP. “Who are we to say anything? He’s the medical person. Our job is just to support at that point.”

“I feel very lucky,” Cifaldi told KTMF. “A couple inches the other way and this would be a different story.”

Cifaldi was back at work on Monday, hoping someday he will be able to reach the summit of Granite Peak. He does not regret his decision-making after he was impaled.

“I think 99 times out of a hundred I would make the same decision,” Cifaldi told the AP. “Search and rescue coming to help you is free. The flight’s not. That was a factor in me deciding to self-rescue.

“But the fact that I had two experienced great friends with me and we had the ability to contact search and rescue if something went wrong made that a lot more of an easy decision.”

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