Updated

Updated · Yahoo New Zealand News · Jul 30

Montana Nurse Hikes 10 Miles With 44-Inch Pole Through Body After Refusing Airlift

Updated

Updated · Yahoo New Zealand News · Jul 30

Montana Nurse Hikes 10 Miles With 44-Inch Pole Through Body After Refusing Airlift

Q: What critical medical decision did an impaled hiker make on Granite Peak that ultimately saved his life during a grueling self-rescue?

He made the medically critical decision to leave the trekking pole in place and not pull it out until he reached a hospital. After the pole pierced through his side on Granite Peak, David Cifaldi used his nursing training to quickly assess himself. He determined he could still breathe deeply, was not bleeding heavily, and that the injury appeared to miss vital organs. Based on that assessment, he chose not to remove the object on the mountain, where pulling it out could have triggered severe internal bleeding or worsened hidden damage. With the pole still lodged in his body, Cifaldi then committed to a self-rescue, hiking about 10 miles back to the trailhead with help from his two companions. Search and rescue had been alerted by satellite communicator, but he judged that moving carefully under his own power was the safest immediate option given his stable condition and the remote terrain. Doctors in Billings removed the pole roughly eight to nine hours later. Accounts of the incident indicate that keeping the impaling object in place until definitive medical care was available was the key choice that helped him survive the ordeal.

Q: How did a nurse hike 10 miles down Montana's highest peak with a trekking pole piercing his torso without bleeding to death?

He survived because the pole appears to have missed major blood vessels, the lung and other vital organs, and because he did the medically correct thing for an impalement: he left the object in place until surgeons could remove it. Cifaldi, a wound-care nurse and former ER nurse, quickly self-assessed after the fall. He said he could take deep breaths, had full feeling, was not dizzy or lightheaded, and was not showing signs of major external bleeding. Those are important clues that the injury was likely confined to soft tissue in his side and back rather than the chest cavity or abdomen. He later said he could feel through his skin that the pole was not deeply angled into his torso. Leaving the pole in place was critical. In impalement injuries, the object can sometimes act as a plug, limiting bleeding by putting pressure on damaged tissue. Pulling it out in the field can trigger catastrophic hemorrhage. That is why he and his friends chose to hike out with the pole still lodged through his lat area. His friends also helped reduce the risk. One stayed behind him monitoring the wound and his stability, while another went ahead on the trail. They alerted search and rescue with a satellite communicator, so authorities and the hospital knew what was coming if his condition worsened. The pole remained in place for roughly eight to nine hours before doctors in Billings removed it. Cifaldi said a slightly different angle could have made the outcome far worse.

3 articles · Updated · Yahoo New Zealand News · Jul 30

David Cifaldi, 32, trekked about 10 miles and descended nearly 5,000 feet from Granite Peak with a 44-inch steel-tipped trekking pole still lodged beneath his left arm and out his back.
After slipping near the Froze-to-Death Plateau, the Billings wound-care nurse examined himself, concluded the pole had missed his chest cavity and vital organs, and told rescuers he would hike out.
A six-hour self-rescue followed across boulders, snowfields and backcountry terrain while his two friends supported him and Stillwater County Search and Rescue monitored without intervening.
At the trailhead, the group drove to a clinic before Cifaldi was transferred to St. Vincent Regional Hospital, where doctors removed the pole, treated him and released him; he returned to work within days.
Cifaldi said he would likely make the same choice again, adding that helicopter cost, two experienced companions and a satellite Garmin inReach all factored into declining evacuation.