Climbing Mountains and Descending in a Helicopter

Peter had talked about summiting the Brothers for a few years and I knew that eventually this dream would be realized. He just needed to convince a few others to do it with him, and a few months ago he had assembled his team and they marked it on their calendars. Their plan was to leave late Friday night, hike a few miles in the dark to their campsite, and get up early to summit and descend all in the same day. This was what everyone did, so it wasn’t a big task. However, nowhere in Peter’s dreaming about summiting did he envision he’d descend any other way than with his own two legs!

Anyhow, on Friday night, before Peter departed to pick up his friends, we huddled together as a family unit, and Peter and I talked about how blessed we are to be living this life and we prayed prayers of protection over each other before we sent Peter off to finally climb this mountain he’d been talking about for years!

And sometime that night, I had a dream that I had a miscarriage and Peter had an accident and the basis of the dream was that God gives life and takes it away in His time. The dream was all about me reconciling this give and take and desiring for Peter to be spared and protected and releasing my baby to the Lord, knowing what that meant. And I remember thinking, if I had to choose, I’d choose Peter. I love that man so much. Yet at the same time, I really really love this baby deeply and want this baby growing inside me so much. And in the dream, I remember processing the fact that I’d be okay, that I’d survive this grief, this loss, and be stronger for it. And when I woke up, I remember thinking I must have been bawling my eyes out in my sleep and my heart ached. 

And even with that dream in the back of my mind, we went about our weekend, the boys and I, going to a birthday party for a little friend Saturday morning and running errands later that day. At around 4 on Saturday, my dad asked if I’d heard from Peter and I was like no, I can’t imagine they have cell service where they are.  But I did say, I’m guessing they’ve already summited and they’re either already down the mountain or nearly there.

Let’s just say, never in my wildest dreams did I envision the text I’d receive on Saturday night from Dan, Peter’s climbing buddy, informing me that Peter had fallen and was being airlifted. And when I got the news about Peter that night, I had this strange feeling that something was going to happen with the baby.

And then around 8:55 PM that night, just as I’m sitting down to fold the 3 loads of laundry in front of me, my phone beeps and I see a text from Dan, and I remember thinking, that’s weird, Dan never texts me.

Hi Malia, this is Dan. Peter had a fall coming down a snow field from the top of the South Brother. He is mildly concussed, 3-4 chipped teach, abrasians, and cut under his jaw. Navy helicopter just picked him up. Not sure where they are transporting him. He has his cell phone. I will be out of cell service most likely in a few minutes. BOTTOM LINE: He is fine but will be bruised and sore and need some stitches and tooth work.

And my instant reply.

Is this for real? I only ask because he was joking nothing was going to happen to him…my sister in law was like are you sure you should go? Be safe as you have a wife and kids at home and a baby on the way…but Dan, I don’t take you for a joker, so I’m thinking this is for real. Thanks for letting me know!!

And then I sent messages out to my tribe letting them know what was happening and to ask them to pray.  And I’m pretty sure I tried to call him, and he didn’t answer, and then I thought, oh I should look to see where his phone is and sure enough he’d landed in Seattle and I could see that he'd traveled at 156 mph in 9 minutes to his location.

And then 25 minutes later, the nurse called from Harborview ER to inform me that my husband was there and he was okay. And she put him on the phone and he was talking about how he was fine and he wasn’t staying the night. And the nurse was like umm, yes you are. He wasn’t making a ton of sense, definite side effect of the concussion. But they did discharge him after just 6 hours, so technically he says he didn’t stay the night in the hospital.

And at 3:30 AM, nearly 12 hours after his fall, I found myself sitting on the front porch in my pjs awaiting Peter’s arrival home via an Uber. I can’t even put into words the tremendous relief I felt as my phone dinged informing me that Peter was home before the headlights of the car had even come around the corner. And I lept up as he opened the door, and I watched this broken and battered man limp out of the car toward me.

At the hospital, in between exams, he had pieced together the parts of the story he remembered. They had summited around 3:00, and it was harder and more technical than they had thought it would be, so it took them longer to ascend then they thought it would, which meant the whole thing was going to take them longer than they had originally thought.

At the summit, they met 3 guys that just happened to be certified mountaineers, who were planning on traversing down a different part of the mountain, but they decided last minute to descend with Peter and his friends. Thank the Lord for these guys who had overly prepared for what was to come.

And then Peter and his other climbing buddy Mike are descending down the snow field about 200 ft from the summit, and Mike is teaching Peter how to plunge step in his non mountaineering boots. Peter slips a few times and realizes this is really hard, and then states to Mike that he's going to get off the snow and climb down on the rocks. And as Peter is making his way to the rocks, he slips and falls 150 feet and his body disappears from Mike's view.

And it was roughly 3:45 PM.

Mike later said, he had no idea what he was going to find when he found Peter, and that he thought for sure he had broken his legs or something just by the way his body was positioned. But by the grace of God all his bones were intact, and Peter's bag had caught on a rock, stopping him from traveling any further down the snow field. His body had wedged itself between some rocks and the ice. And all of them worked together to pull Peter out.

And they assessed his body for damage. He definitely had a concussion and his face was beaten up, but that was about it. And he was shivering, so they needed to raise his body temperature. So they piled all their jackets on him and covered his legs with their pants and somehow started a little fire to heat up some water to use as a hot water bottle.

And by the grace of God, they somehow managed to have service at that location on the mountain, and they called 911, and told the operator what had happened. And they waited, and waited, and waited. One of the mountaineering guys had a special watch that showed their GPS coordinates so they were able to communicate that to the operator and the search and rescue team. And they could see the helicopter flying overhead, but the weather was so foggy and so bad, they weren't sure if they were going to be able to get him by air. So they called for a search and rescue team on the ground that was waiting at the foot of the mountain. They helicopter had made 3 attempts, and all the guys on the mountain were ready to start climbing down with Peter at their side as they knew they were going to lose the daylight really soon. So they started packing up their stuff and Dan got a text saying Stay put! Don't go anywhere, we have a 4 minute window.

And on the 4th attempt as the sun is starting to set, a guy jumps out of the helicopter and lands near them, and straps Peter to him and ascends back up into the air.

And it's 8:52 PM, which means the rest of the guys that were left on the mountain now have to descend in the dark! But before they start their descent, Dan sends me the dreaded text.

And if I'm honest, after reading the text, and after speaking to the Harborview nurse and after talking to Peter, I couldn't stop thinking about his friends and how traumatic it must have been for them. They witnessed their friend falling down a snow field. They then proceeded to spend 5 hours waiting on the helicopter, only to then spend the next 7 hours climbing down the mountain in the dark. And then to have to communicate it all somehow to the wife at home. Goodness me, bless them.

And what a tremendous blessing it was to have Peter's real life heroes stop by that Sunday night to drop off our car and Peter's stuff and to share their side of the story.

We just sat around the table while they replayed their version of the story and filled in so many of the holes in Peter’s. And they showed pictures and videos, and I videoed it all to share with Peter's family. And let's just say they all do a better job of telling the story than I do! 

And when they showed the video of the helicopter and the guy coming down to get Peter, and as I watched the guy strap Peter to him and the helicopter fly away before either of them were even inside, the tears came.

And I just kept thinking, thank you Jesus for this moment, for this opportunity we have to gather around this table, for the opportunity to hear the story first hand. It was so good for my soul, I can only imagine how good it was for theirs.

You guys, we only get one life…may we never forget  it and may we live it fully. May you speak the words you’ve been meaning to say, may you reconcile the broken relationship, may you quite your job and travel the world, may you pursue your dreams wholeheartedly, may you have no regrets.