Touching the Void
Touching the Void
Joe and Simon are mountain climbing in the Andes, when Joe has a terrible accident. Here are two accounts by Joe and Simon of what happened. Joe’s account I hit the slope at the base of the cliff before I saw it coming. I was facing into the slope and both knees locked as I struck it. I felt a shattering blow in my knee, felt bones splitting, and screamed. The impact catapulted me over backwards and down the slope of the East Face. I slid, head-first, on my back. The rushing speed of it confused me. I thought of the drop below but felt nothing. Simon would be ripped off the mountain. He couldn’t hold this. I screamed again as I jerked to a sudden violent stop. Everything was still, silent. My thoughts raced madly. Then pain flooded down my thigh - a fierce burning fire coming down the inside of my thigh, seeming to ball in my groin, building and building until I cried out at it, and my breathing came in ragged gasps. My leg! ... My leg! I hung, head down, on my back, left leg tangled in the rope above me and my right leg hanging slackly to one side. I lifted my head from the snow and stared, up across my chest, at a grotesque distortion in the right knee, twisting the leg into a strange zigzag. I didn’t connect it with the pain which burnt my groin. That had nothing to do with my knee. I kicked my left leg free of the rope and swung round until I was hanging against the snow on my chest, feet down. The pain eased. I kicked my left foot into the slope and stood up. A wave of nausea surged over me. I pressed my face into the snow, and the sharp cold seemed to calm me. Something terrible, something dark with dread occurred to me, and as I thought about it I felt the dark thought break into panic: ‘I’ve broken my leg, that’s it. I’m dead. Everyone said it … if there’s just two of you a broken ankle could turn into a death sentence … if it’s broken … if … It doesn’t hurt so much, maybe I’ve just ripped something.’ I kicked my right leg against the
Joe and Simon are mountain climbing in the Andes, when Joe has a terrible accident. Here are two accounts by Joe and Simon of what happened. Joe’s account I hit the slope at the base of the cliff before I saw it coming. I was facing into the slope and both knees locked as I struck it. I felt a shattering blow in my knee, felt bones splitting, and screamed. The impact catapulted me over backwards and down the slope of the East Face. I slid, head-first, on my back. The rushing speed of it confused me. I thought of the drop below but felt nothing. Simon would be ripped off the mountain. He couldn’t hold this. I screamed again as I jerked to a sudden violent stop. Everything was still, silent. My thoughts raced madly. Then pain flooded down my thigh - a fierce burning fire coming down the inside of my thigh, seeming to ball in my groin, building and building until I cried out at it, and my breathing came in ragged gasps. My leg! ... My leg! I hung, head down, on my back, left leg tangled in the rope above me and my right leg hanging slackly to one side. I lifted my head from the snow and stared, up across my chest, at a grotesque distortion in the right knee, twisting the leg into a strange zigzag. I didn’t connect it with the pain which burnt my groin. That had nothing to do with my knee. I kicked my left leg free of the rope and swung round until I was hanging against the snow on my chest, feet down. The pain eased. I kicked my left foot into the slope and stood up. A wave of nausea surged over me. I pressed my face into the snow, and the sharp cold seemed to calm me. Something terrible, something dark with dread occurred to me, and as I thought about it I felt the dark thought break into panic: ‘I’ve broken my leg, that’s it. I’m dead. Everyone said it … if there’s just two of you a broken ankle could turn into a death sentence … if it’s broken … if … It doesn’t hurt so much, maybe I’ve just ripped something.’ I kicked my right leg against the