My accident in the Grand Canyon

Hey All..I’ve been a lurker here for some time, but this topic hits a little close to home for me. Hopefully sharing my story may reinforce the pro-helmet argument. On Black Friday of 2014, a group of us did a backpacking/canyoneering trip in the Grand Canyon. The plan was to do Garden, Horn and Salt canyons.The trip was going great and we had finished up Salt, which was our last canyon of the trip and were hanging out at the beach. We were done early and I was still in canyon mode and wanted to setup a rope with which to work on some skills. I put my harness back on, grabbed a rope, webbing and most importantly put on my helmet. The scramble up the cliff didn’t look too bad…class 3, maybe 4. I climbed up a gully, and started traversing over to setup an anchor. Somehow, I then fell down the cliff – none of us know why….loose rock was the most likely culprit. My group heard rockfall and saw me tumbling head over heels down the slope..unconscious(luckily it wasn’t a vertical slope) – they didn’t know what I was doing because I stupidly went off without telling anyone. My friends ran over and thought they were watching me die…..luckily after about 10 minutes I regained consciousness(though I remember nothing until 3 days later in the hospital in Flagstaff). One of my friends packrafted to Monument creek, and stayed the night, then ran the Tonto the next day until he had cell reception and was able to call for help. 18 hours after the fall, the helicopter arrived and I was on my way to Flagstaff. It’s now been 11 months and I’ve made a full recovery. I ended up with a crushed wrist, 4 fractured vertebrae(minor fractures, luckily), 4 broken ribs, a bunch of stapes in my head, and a TBI(traumatic brain injury). I spent two weeks in a rehab facility relearning how to walk, working on cognitive skills, etc. I started canyoneering again in May with a few easy canyons around Tucson and have been ramping up ever since. The one thing that still remains is the guilt of what I put my friends and family thru. Especially those that were there and had to watch me fall, thought I was dead, saved my life and helped me recover. The inside of my helmet was crushed. Had I not been wearning it, I have to think I would be dead or at least never canyoneering or hiking again. A helmet literally saved my life and saved my friends from the horrible reprocussions of watching me die on a canyoneering trip.

Joel