My friend and I started climbing and fell right in love. You all know the feeling you get when you reach the top of your first climb! Last summer we climbed almost everyday. We climbed Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday, and then we set out for climbing on Tuesday not knowing how the rock would be or that I wouldn't walk away.

"I was standing on a cliff that was overgrown with moss and kinda steep..."

Setting up a little top roping anchor, I began to set up for my rappel down the cliff. I was standing on a cliff that was overgrown with moss and kinda steep (but when you find that awesome climb you will try anything to climb it!). I stand up and lose my balance.

I slip off the cliff! I am knocked out! I am falling, and the rope is just ripping though my ACT! I bang into the rock, then hit the ground. I bounce about 3 times and tumble. My climbing partner comes and wakes me up, but I keep passing out. I am getting really scared. I keep losing my memory of what just happened. I can't breathe very well, and I can't feel or move my legs.

"My climbing partner comes and wakes me up, but I keep passing out..."

The paramedics come and haul me out on a stretcher. I wake up in the stretcher, in the ambulance, and then I wake up in the hospital. I am in a cat scan! I am in a green room, and I see two doctors in white coats. I think that I am dead!

Anyway, I am all better! I fractured my pelvis in three places, collapsed a lung, cut my eye and head open, and had compression fractures in my spine. I now have a six-inch plate with five screws in my pelvis! This event happened in Sept '98. I am back climbing, and I don't have any permanent damage.

"I now have a six-inch plate with five screws in my pelvis!..."

I know why I fell. A great rock climber once said: "Once you have lost that rush, that churning in your stomach when you are about to go down a big cliff, you need to stop and check your knot." I didn't take any time to properly go through my pre-climb.

Oh yeah, I fell 85 feet!

— Bug Guy, MountainZone.com Pubster