All's "Wry" With the World: Pictures worth a thousand words

Pictures are worth a thousand words . . . but not for the faint of heart.

In service of this being a cautionary tale, I offer the before & after film of the injuries I sustained as a result of taking a 40 ft fall from a climbing gym wall. All of this is the result of literally two seconds of distraction as I began climbing my last route of the day using auto-belays where I failed to use my standard safety protocol of double checking that I had clipped into the auto-belay, and as a result I climbed the route unprotected.

I fell at a 45 degree angle back first, so my feet hit first, then butt, then hands, and finally face (must have been looking over my shoulder on the way down, . . . I have this fleeting memory of checking to make certain I wasn't about to land on somebody by mistake!)

As it was the last thing that hit, there was nothing broken on my face/skull, . . . just a concussion, black & blue bruising all over, and a bloody nose. I exploded one vertebra (which was replaced as can be seen in the film below ) and had four others fused to my hip bone (titanium train tracks running down my back). Lots of snap, crackle pop in both hands, wrists, forearms, feet, heels, ankles, and shins.

The pictures below are a representative set from the many hundreds taken over the last several months. I've definitely received more than the usual dose of x-rays!