While sitting on the side of Mount Unwin with a severely broken ankle, July 21, Sean Prockter channelled his inner Aron Ralston, filming short videos to document his wait for help.
But unlike Ralson, whose story was made famous by the film 127 Hours, Prockter didn’t have to wait for days. Following the heroic efforts of his climbing partner, Jeff Turney, it was only five hours before Parks Canada’s visitor safety specialists arrived on the scene.
It was supposed to be their last hurrah: two friends setting out to bag one last peak.
Turney was set to leave Jasper just a couple of days later, so it only made sense to get one more adventure under his belt.
After all, he and Prockter were prepared.
They had the gear, the know how and the ability. And to top it all off, they knew each other’s ins and outs; they’d climbed together numerous times before.
But, despite their preparation, the duo never did reach the summit.
At 5:30 a.m., while climbing a glacier up the striking mountain on the southwestern shores of Maligne Lake, Prockter slipped.
“We were coming up the ramp part, it’s kind of the steepest part of the whole glacier, and I didn’t get my crampon in the ice properly; I slipped,” he recalled a few days later.
“It was one of those things, I made a mistake and slipped and before I knew it I was falling down the glacier. My ice axe had flown off my wrist—it was attached; I had a leash. I don’t even recall it falling out of my hand. All I knew was I was sliding down and I had no means of stopping myself.”
Prockter was leading the way and was attached to Turney by a climbing rope; so when he slipped, he took his friend with him.
“We were 12 metres apart on the rope, so that meant that I free slid 24 metres. Jeff said I was going like 30 kilometres an hour. It was freaking fast.
“Once the 24 metres ran out, of course he tried to self arrest me, but there was so much force that he just dug that ice axe in as best as he could and just held it there and tried and tried to stop me; it would give and we’d slide down faster and then he’d try and try and eventually he caught me.”
Prockter estimates the duo slid for at least 200 metres before Turney was able to stop them, plunging his ice axe deep into the glacier and holding on tight.
It was during the fall that Prockter broke his ankle; his crampon caught the ice and dug in while the rest of his body kept falling.
“It snapped my ankle in half,” he said after receiving surgery in Edmonton last week. “Basically my foot was completely detached from my leg—that’s my understanding. So my knee would be up facing toward the sky, but my foot would be laying flat on the ground, with my toes pointing out.”
When they came to a standstill, Turney realized his friend was injured, so he anchored himself and Prockter to the glacier with ice screws and set up a rope system to lower Prockter down to a safe spot where he’d be able to sit and wait for help.
“Because it’s a 70-metre rope, he was only able to lower me 35 metres and then he had to reset everything, making sure he was still safe doing it. It was still pretty steep, so he had to lower me down to where it was at least a little bit flatter, so I wasn’t just hanging there—it was a 35 degree angle on the glacier.
“He eventually lowered me to a spot, I said ‘I’m good here, this is probably the safest I’m going to be’ and he took me off belay and off the rope and then ran to go get help.”
That was at 6:30 a.m. and help wasn’t just around the corner.
In fact, Turney had to make a “heroic effort” to save his friend, said Parks Canada’s A.L. Horton, a visitor safety specialist.
“He hiked all the way out to the lake, jumped in the canoe and then canoed all the way down to the north end of the lake to the Parks Canada station that’s there.”
Although he wasn’t sure of the distance travelled, Horton noted that dispatch receive a call at 9:30 a.m. and deduced that it took Turney three hours to reach the warden station.
In the meantime, Prockter did his best to stay calm.
“I went into shock initially,” he said, noting that in 2010 he was certified as a Wilderness First Responder, so he had a general understanding of what his body was going through.
“I was going in and out of consciousness, and I’d suddenly be able to make myself come to, then afterwards—because my body was trying to protect my ankle and kill the pain—I was shivering uncontrollably.
“I just couldn’t get warm sitting on the glacier. I was wearing every layer you could possibly wear: toque, gloves, whatever, and I couldn’t get warm.”
To keep his mind off the pain and the cold, Prockter did everything he could to stay entertained.
“I videoed the whole thing. I had a few self videos, kind of like Aron Ralston when he had his arm caught. I had nothing else to do.”
At about 10:30 a.m., four hours after saying goodbye to Turney, help arrived.
“Given the nature of the location, we responded with a helicopter,” said Horton.
But it wasn’t as simple as just placing Prockter in a harness and slinging him off the mountain. First, visitor safety specialist Max Darrah had to snap Prockter’s ankle back into place, so he could be moved without feeling a significant amount of pain.
“Max had to pull my foot out away from my leg and then spin it back into its right position, so the ankle could go back in its hole,” recalls Prockter, noting that he didn’t pass out—a feat worth congratulations from his rescuer.
“It was kind of funny because we were both congratulating each other during the whole ordeal,” said Prockter with a laugh. “I was like, ‘hey man, thanks for setting it, that was awesome; you did really well,’ and I didn’t pass out, I screamed out my lungs, but I managed to hold my own, so he’s congratulating me and I’m congratulating him. It was kind of funny, we made light of the bad situation.”
Once his foot was close to its rightful position, Darrah then put Prockter in a body harness and he was slowly lifted off the ground and flown to a safe spot, where he could be transported into the helicopter.
Despite his broken ankle, Prockter said the ride was pretty amazing.
“You kind of spin a little bit, so it was kind of cool to see that beautiful mountain and then spin and see Maligne Lake and then the beautiful mountain again.
“It was a quite relaxing ride.”
Once in the helicopter, Prockter was taken to the Seton Healthcare Centre where his foot was further adjusted before he was taken by ambulance to Edmonton where he had his surgery.
“They put a plate and two screws in,” said Prockter, who will spend the next six weeks, at least, in a plaster cast. “I’ve never broken a bone, ever. I’ve never had crutches or anything, so it’s all new to me.
“I’m just glad I didn’t fall into a crevasse or break my pelvis. It could have been so much worse. I could have fallen into all of the rock debris down below and cut my entire body up. At least it was just my ankle.
“I’m just trying to stay positive. I love life. If I can’t go climbing for a few weeks, I’ll find something to do. I’ll go fishing. I’ll go on a road trip. I’ll be happy still. It’s just a setback.
“And I’ll get up Unwin, don’t worry. It will just have to be next year.”
Nicole Veerman
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