A MAN hiked 10 miles with a trekking pole speared through his body after a freak accident on Montana’s highest mountain.
David Cifaldi slipped while climbing 12,803ft Granite Peak and fell onto one of his walking poles, which pierced his side before protruding from his lower back.
David Cifaldi was impaled by a pole when hiking up a mountain in Montana Credit: Gofundme
His medical training quickly kicked in, allowing him to keep a level head in the situation Credit: David Cifaldi
Instead of calling for rescue, the emergency room nurse calmly assessed his injuries and spent hours walking back down the mountain.
Recalling the terrifying moment, Cifaldi told KTVQ: “By the time I rolled over, I kind of knew something wasn’t right.”
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The pole had entered below his left arm, exited through his lower back and narrowly missed several vital organs.
“Through my skin, I could feel the trekking pole,” he said.
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His two friend accompanied him back down before taking him for surgery Credit: Gofundme
Cifaldi now plans to reach the summit once he has fully recovered Credit: Gofundme
“I knew it wasn’t deep, and I knew I could take deep breaths.”
His medical training quickly took over.
“I think my nurse brain clicked on,” Cifaldi told Montana’s Local 12.
“As soon as I was able to self-assess and establish that this was not life-threatening right now, I was pretty convinced I was going to get off that mountain under my own power.”
After reaching the trailhead, Cifaldi was taken to a nearby clinic before friends drove him two hours to a hospital in Billings, where surgeons carefully removed the pole.
“I feel very lucky,” he said.
“A couple inches the other way and this would be a different story.”
Cifaldi and friends Jesse Ross and Brad Reich had set off at 3.30am to climb Granite Peak and were just 1,000ft from the summit when disaster struck.
On the descent, one friend walked behind him to make sure he didn’t stumble on the rugged terrain, while the other went ahead to warn approaching hikers.
To keep spirits high, the two friends even “started making kebab jokes”.
A fundraiser has since been launched to help cover Cifaldi’s medical bills.
Ross wrote: “He self-assessed calmly: no bleeding, full feeling, no lightheadedness, nothing vital hit, and the pole stable in place.
“Given his condition, he made the call to self-rescue rather than wait for extraction – hiking 10 miles back to the trailhead with a trekking pole still through his body.
“He reached the trailhead entirely under his own power – never once complaining, staying in remarkably high spirits.”
Once fully recovered, Cifaldi says the trio plan to return and finally conquer the summit that nearly claimed his life.
Granite Peak is listed at between 12,799ft and 12,807ft, depending on the survey, making it Montana’s highest mountain.
First summited in 1923, only 17 climbers are known to have reached the top during the next three decades.
The remote peak is also the setting of one of American climbing’s greatest mysteries.
In 1959, Ernest Bruffey vanished during a solo ascent on the same day a powerful earthquake killed 28 people in Montana.
His fate remained a mystery for more than 40 years until a group of six friends discovered human remains in 2000.
