An emergency room nurse survived a harrowing hiking accident on Montana’s highest peak after a trekking pole pierced through his torso — then managed to descend roughly 10 miles for help with the pole still lodged in his body.
David Cifaldi, 32, was climbing Granite Peak with two friends last Monday and had reached about 11,800 feet when he slipped on rocky terrain and fell onto the pole, according to KTMF and a GoFundMe page set up to help cover his medical costs.
“I just slipped on some rocks,” Cifaldi told the outlet. “It was just kind of a freak thing.”
When he got back on his feet, Cifaldi realized the trekking pole had passed cleanly through his side, protruding from both ends of his torso.
“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 attempt to remove the pole, Cifaldi and his hiking partners made the critical decision to leave it in place and begin the long descent. They then trekked more than 10 miles across punishing alpine terrain, including boulder fields and snowfields, to reach the trailhead, KTMF reported.
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One of his friends used a satellite communicator to alert local search and rescue crews, while the other stayed close to Cifaldi and helped guide him through the dangerous route down the mountain.
“David navigated the plateau’s snowfields and boulder fields, made his way down past Mystic Lake, and reached the trailhead entirely under his own power — never once complaining, staying in remarkably high spirits,” Jesse Ross, one of the friends hiking with Cifaldi, wrote on the GoFundMe page.
“Near Mystic Lake, he even asked one of us to hike ahead and warn other hikers, so no children would have to see the wound,” Ross said.
Cifaldi reached the trailhead after 6-and-a-half hours and was taken to a hospital before being transferred to Intermountain Health in Billings, where the trekking pole was finally removed.
“I feel very lucky,” Cifaldi recalled. “A couple inches the other way, and this would be a different story.”
The nurse is now recovering and hopes to quickly return to helping his patients — but is facing “significant medical bills.”
The fundraiser to raise money for Cifaldi’s medical expenses, including a possible upcoming surgery, has raised over $2,700 of its $10,000 goal.
