Sorry about the HUGE wall of text, but here's an experience I had this past spring break.

I'm currently a 20-year old in college and when I'm not trying my best to keep my GPA where I want it or getting my arms and legs pulled in all directions by my sorority, you'll find me in the middle of nowhere scaling rocks and cliff faces. I'm a climber.

This past spring break, I went out to a cliff face that I had climbed dozens of times.

While I'll spare you the details of the setup, the configuration of my safety line was quite simple. A large and aging oak tree above the cliff served as an anchor point; the line was tied around the trunk and then strung through two clips attached to loop bolts (drilled directly into the rock) near the top of the cliff. These served as primary support and backup support – if one failed, the other would keep me from falling.

Excited to climb outdoors for the first time in a while, I exchanged my running shoes for my climbing shoes, put on my helmet, and secured my harness. After queuing up a playlist on my iPod, I pulled myself onto the wall.

As I started to climb, I felt a delightful sense of familiarity. It was pure muscle memory. Just as a field hockey player knows when she has struck the ball perfectly on net or a goalkeeper instinctively lunges with perfect form to save the shot, my body knew exactly what holds to grasp, where to reach, and what path to take up the cliff.

A crimson red bolt signified the quarter-way mark. I paused for a moment to adjust my harness. I set my right foot down on a piece of rock that suddenly fell away as I pushed up for leverage. Within a split second, I heard a sound over my earbuds that I can only analogize to two wine glasses being noisily clinked together. I looked up just in time to see the line go slack. Then I fell – and continued falling – before slamming into the cold, rock-hard ground thirty feet below.

I'm not sure how long I laid supine and motionless at the base of the cliff. My ears were ringing. Little colorful dots flitted in and out of my field of vision. I was scared to move but at the same time afraid that I wouldn't be able to move at all.

At very least, my helmet (though cracked straight down the middle) had protected my skull. My neck and back were seemingly intact. After summing up the courage, I was almost thrilled that I could still wiggle my fingers and toes. But the brief ecstasy that I could move my limbs was quickly erased by an excruciating pain that tore down my left leg. I screamed louder than I ever had before, tears forming in the corners of my eyes. I had never previously experienced that kind of agony. I was almost certain that I had fractured my left femur. I suspected that I had broken my hip, at least four or five ribs, and God knew what else. I distinctly remember the taste and feeling of blood dripping down the back of my throat.
Then I remembered my phone, the phone I had tucked away under the front passenger seat of my car. I'm fairly certain some of the screaming I did was just as much a product of pain as it was anger at myself. I never saw a reason to bring it along when I climbed. I figured it was prone to get rained on or broken or lost.

It was a struggle to stave off the enticing temptation of unconsciousness. I knew that I couldn't afford to pass out. Anatomy class had taught me that such serious trauma to the body often meant severe internal injuries that could prove fatal even if the individual survived the initial fall.

Waiting for someone to find me was not an option either. One summer, just out of pure curiosity, I left a piece of cord clipped to one of the loops near the top of the cliff. If someone else was climbing here, that piece of cord would have been disturbed or missing when I returned. It stayed in place for the entire summer.

My eyes came to rest on a long metal pole lying next to my bag, just within arms' reach next to my keys. Informally, it was called a “clip stick”, used for hooking and unhooking clips in hard to reach places. I knew the path back to the car....if I could just get myself upright, I could use that stick for support...

I must have spent the next forty minutes untangling myself from my harness and trying to stand up without collapsing from the pain. Eventually, I was able to get myself to the point where I could take a few steps before stopping. I kept telling myself that any progress towards the car was good progress, no matter how slow.

With each step, a wave of pain washed over my entire lower body. More spread through my sides with every breath. Blood poured from my nose. I'm pretty sure that if a lone hiker had come across me at that point, he or she would have run screaming in the other direction – certain that the zombie takeover had started. My walk was not a walk at all, it was more of a drunken shuffle. After every couple of steps, I had to pause and lean on the pole. My head was pounding. My stomach churned. I can't even begin to estimate the number of times I fell.

By the time that I reached my car, my legs were covered with cuts and scrapes. A distinctly sharp and stabbing pain had developed in my left shoulder. For a moment, I placed my hand on the cold metal of the trunk for support, too exhausted to do much else. With every ounce of strength that I had left, I unlocked the passenger side and reached for my phone. The 911 operator assured me that help was fast approaching.

I was rushed to a hospital about thirty minutes away.

The story that the x-rays told confirmed what I had suspected: my femur was shattered, along with four ribs (two on each side). I had suffered internal injuries to my kidneys and lungs. My spleen had ruptured and started progressively leaking blood. Had I waited for help, the rate of blood loss meant that I would have likely died in as little as seven or eight hours.

Miraculously, my skull, back, and neck were left entirely unscathed.

TL;DR - Fell 30-40 ft. and walked a mile back to my car on a broken femur, broken hip, and other injuries.