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The very last thing Ruth Woroniecki remembers earlier than waking up bleeding on the snow, surrounded by a gaggle of nervous hikers, is telling herself to deal with the slippery path at her toes.
It was a sunny and clear Christmas Eve morning, and Woroniecki was mountain climbing the San Gabriel Mountains. She’d summited Cucamonga Peak, one in all Los Angeles’ hottest mountaintops, which rises greater than 8,000 toes, when she came across an icy switchback on her descent. “I didn’t have traction,” Woroniecki, 40, stated. She put her cellphone and headphones away and gripped her mountain climbing sticks.
“I wasn’t in ‘get pleasure from hike’ mode anymore,” she stated. Her coronary heart beat sooner as she advised herself to focus on her footing.
“That’s my final reminiscence earlier than coming to,” Woroniecki stated throughout a latest video name.
Woroniecki slipped and fell practically 200 toes down the path earlier than slamming towards a tree that broke her fall, narrowly averting a destiny that has struck various hikers in Southern California this winter. Solely two weeks after Woroniecki’s fall, veteran hiker Crystal Paula Gonzalez fell 500 toes to her dying on the icy path on close by Mt. Baldy, the place search-and-rescue groups have responded to at the least 14 requires assist since Christmas. A number of hikers have died, and others have gone lacking. A latest sequence of storms has elevated the dangers going through mountaineers.
Although Woroniecki miraculously survived, her restoration is simply starting.
Woroniecki, who typically works as a server in Las Vegas, arrived in California after Thanksgiving on a service journey along with her dad and mom and siblings, visiting prisons and doing outreach on skid row. On this morning, she had a selection between a 20-mile run and a hike. “I had my trainers subsequent to my mountain climbing boots,” Woroniecki stated. “I picked the hike.”
She left the household’s campground in Lytle Creek round 6 a.m. along with her backpack, mountain climbing sticks, cellphone and water. Rising up in Colorado, Woroniecki spent her life mountain climbing, with household and on her personal. She advised her household she’d be residence in time to look at the Dallas Cowboys, one in all her father’s favourite groups, play the Philadelphia Eagles at 1:30 p.m.
The day was good: uninterrupted swaths of blue stretched overhead, a heat morning solar, a path slicing via forests, the scent of pine needles mixing with the desert air. Woroniecki listened to Irish tunes, oldies and songs her father made. Woroniecki, for whom prayer and Jesus are the bedrock of her life, stated she noticed and felt her Creator in all places.
She made it to the Icehouse Saddle, the place the path results in the summit, about 8:30 a.m. She texted her household, despatched them photographs and allow them to know she would linger longer. She nonetheless deliberate to be residence at kickoff.
Woroniecki arrived on the summit of Cucamonga Peak between 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., the place she sat for about 25 minutes earlier than trekking again, alongside a sequence of switchbacks. Snow had been piling up on mountaintops throughout Southern California, and Cucamonga was no exception. Woroniecki stated it was ankle-deep at sure factors alongside the hike.
For, Woroniecki there’s solely earlier than and after the autumn.
Woroniecki stated she woke as much as the faces of a number of involved hikers, together with an older couple and a person. She heard a helicopter slicing the sky. She remembered worrying she couldn’t afford the chopper and telling the couple to go forward, that she’d be OK. “I nonetheless thought I might get myself down” the mountain, she stated.
However along with her blood staining the close by snow, Woroniecki quickly realized the severity of her accidents. Her face and palms had been lower up and bloodied. She had a gash in her head that the hikers stated was right down to the bone. Woroniecki didn’t comprehend it on the time, however she had additionally damaged two vertebrae in her neck.
The man hikers, one in all whom known as for support by activating an emergency beacon, put a ski hat on her and coated her in emergency blankets. Woroniecki stored packing her head wound with snow.
It took about two hours for the primary helicopter to reach — one of many hikers helped by waving his vivid, orange beanie to flag their location — however the rescue was difficult by sturdy winds. After a number of makes an attempt by the helicopter to drop a cable, a rescuer who’d rappelled down advised Woroniecki they’d need to hike to a special spot to be evacuated.
The ache seared via her physique, significantly her neck. Woroniecki gripped her neck along with her palms and commenced to wish to Jesus: “Have mercy on me, right here, now,” Woroniecki recalled asking God. “Please assist me.”
She estimated she walked about 200 toes down the path — the rescuer main her whereas she clasped her neck — earlier than being airlifted and transported to the trauma heart at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Middle.
It was round 2 p.m., she stated. The final time she remembered wanting on the time, it was after 10 a.m. From the helicopter, Woroniecki crafted a textual content message to her household.
“That was one of many hardest texts I ever needed to ship,” Woroniecki stated. Her brothers had already left the campground trying to find her. Her youthful sister stated the household was shocked and devastated.
Woroniecki spent 5 nights within the intensive care unit. She obtained 40 stitches and staples in her head, in addition to stitches on her nostril and beneath her mouth. She had surgical procedure to insert screws and a plate into her backbone to restore the damaged vertebrae.
After six days bedridden within the hospital, Woroniecki lastly took her first steps. She felt dizzy and off-balance, however with the help of the hospital’s remedy workforce, Woroniecki steadied herself and inched ahead. “It was identical to a surreal second of, ‘I can’t imagine this — I’m strolling,’” Woroniecki stated.
Since her fall practically two months in the past, Woroniecki nonetheless has some numbness in her mouth and ache in her leg that causes her to stroll with a limp. She wears a neck brace that she embellished with a hand-drawn cross on one aspect and the phrases “John 14” for 2 biblical passages on the opposite. Within the center, the phrase “Jesus” in daring, capital letters: God and prayer are central options of her life.
A scar travels from her left temple up via the center of her head. One other scar travels from beneath her lip to the middle of her chin. She has to make use of the brace for about six extra weeks, she stated. She is rebuilding her energy day by day.
There have been some darkish nights spent tussling over that day, she stated.
“You’re human, and you may’t assist however analyze issues,” Woroniecki stated. “I undoubtedly consider issues and suppose twice: What ought to I do totally different? … I’ll nonetheless proceed to stay and to hike.”
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