The Fall: A True Story of Near Death Experience

My muscles felt the pleasant burn of accomplishment as I strained for the next crack in the cliff face.

As a middle school kid at a summer camp in the Colorado Rockies, I was with a group of campers out for a day of cliff climbing.

Catching the crack, I hauled myself up past a flat, smooth section of rock that had stumped every other climber of the day. I had great arms, and now I used them. Everyone else had failed because they could not find a place for their feet. I succeeded because I didn't even try to use my feet. Hand over hand, I slid up past the obstacle.

From down below, I heard a few cheers from onlooking campers. A few muttered astonished phrases as they saw what I'd done.

The camp counselor who was belaying me pulled the excess rope out of my way. Soon my feet found a new purchase, and within another minute I was at the top of the cliff. Smugness overcame me.

Yep, I'm a badass. Even better, everyone below me knew it.

I touched the carribeaner at the top of the cliff, the official signal that a climb had been completed.

With a smile, I looked down the hundred foot drop to the ground. "Ready to repel down!" I called.

"Ready to belay you!" the camp counselor called back. My hard work was done. All that was left was to let him lower me down while I sat back on the rope.

Looking back up at the cliff face in front of me, I kicked off from the rock.

And fell.

I fell forever. The rock shot past me in an uncontrolled blur. My arms and legs waved frantically.

I would later learn that the camp counselor had become distracted in the moment after he confirmed he was ready to belay me, and he'd dropped the rope.

In the brief moments of my fall, I felt certain I was about to die. No one falls so far onto rocks and survives.

Ten feet from the ground, the camp counselor managed to tackle the rope, suddenly jerking me to a stop. My neck snapped hard, and my rope pendulumed first away from the cliff face, and then toward it, smacking me against the rocks.

Slowly, the counselor lowered me the last few feet. Half dazed and bleeding from cuts on my face and arms, I focused on his face. He was sobbing.

"I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! Oh my God I'm so sorry!" Tears streaked his face, and his breath came in choked gasps.

I reached up and took him by the shoulders. "Hey! Hey, listen. I'm not angry with you. Right now, I'm actually really thrilled with you. You saved my life. Maybe later I'll be angry about getting dropped. But right now I am feeling nothing but positive feelings. OK?"

He looked at me with skepticism through watery eyes.

"I mean it. Thank you for saving me."

I hugged him. It was ok. I was ok. In a few hours, so was he.