A horrifying image shows the injuries of a hiker who walked 10 miles with a trekking pole through his body instead of paying for a helicopter evacuation.
David Cifaldi, 32, suffered the gruesome injury while attempting to climb Granite Peak, Montana’s highest mountain, with two friends on July 20.
Despite the pole piercing completely through his body, Cifaldi remained remarkably calm, deciding to hike himself to safety rather than risk removing it or waiting for a helicopter rescue.
David Cifaldi, 32, was impaled by a trekking pole and still hiked 10 miles to safety. Credit: GoFundMe
Freak fall left hiking pole lodged through his body
Cifaldi and his friends had set off at 3.30am to tackle the 12,803-foot peak, fulfilling what he described as a long-held ambition.
The trio was around 1,000 feet from the summit when disaster struck.
“I just slipped on some rocks,” Cifaldi told KSL.
“It was just kind of a freak thing.”
He later explained to KVTQ that he fell onto one of his trekking poles.
“By the time I rolled over, I kind of knew something wasn’t right,” he said.
The pole entered below his left arm, pierced through his torso and exited through his lower back, leaving around eight inches of the pole visible between the entry and exit wounds.
“Through my skin, I could feel the trekking pole,” he said.
“I knew it wasn’t deep, and I knew I could take deep breaths.”
His medical training kicked in
As an emergency room nurse trained in wound care, Cifaldi immediately assessed his own condition and realized he had narrowly avoided a fatal injury.
“I think my nurse brain clicked on,” he said.
“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.”
Rather than remove the pole, which could have caused bleeding, Cifaldi and his friends decided to leave it in place and retrace their route down the mountain.
One friend used a Garmin inReach satellite communicator to alert Stillwater County Search and Rescue, while another stayed beside Cifaldi throughout the six-and-a-half-hour descent as rescue crews checked on his condition every 30 minutes.
He even thought about shielding children from the gruesome sight
Despite his injuries, Cifaldi remained calm throughout the scary ordeal.
According to his friend Jesse Ross, he was more concerned about other hikers than himself.
“There’s families, and he … had us hike ahead and warn people so young kids didn’t have to see such a gnarly wound,” Ross said.
“Just so selfless.”
Ross also described Cifaldi’s impressive composure on a GoFundMe page set up to help cover his recovery.
“He self-assessed calmly: no bleeding, full feeling, no lightheadedness, nothing vital hit, and the pole stable in place,” Ross wrote.
“Given his condition, he made the call to self-rescue rather than wait for extraction – hiking 10 miles back to the trailhead with a trekking pole still through his body.
“[He] reached the trailhead entirely under his own power – never once complaining, staying in remarkably high spirits.”
Cifaldi remained calm throughout the scary ordeal. Credit: GoFundMe
Surgeons removed the pole after nine hours
After finally reaching the trailhead under his own power, Cifaldi was taken to a local clinic before his friends drove him another two hours to a hospital in Billings.
Doctors eventually removed the trekking pole after it had remained lodged in his body for nearly nine hours.
“I feel very lucky,” Cifaldi said.
“A couple inches the other way, and this would be a different story.”
He revealed that he won’t let his near-death experience end his love of hiking.
Once he has fully recovered, he and his friends plan to return to Granite Peak and finish what they started by reaching the summit together.
