Randy's story told by Wendy

I must admit that I am worried to write this part. I am 100 % sure that Randy will correct it a.s.a.p. But here it goes:
He said he was walking over a ledge (Jeff showed me the picture of it later that day) to tie a rope for the others. It was a narrow ledge that his feet couldn't quite fit on and full of ice and snow. Just as he got to the other side and put his hand where he wanted to grab on.. his feet slipped in the ice. He slid down the canyon steep wall about 20 or so feet. Then he pendulumed over into the other side of the wall. By this time the wind was knocked out of him and he doesn't remember anything until he is on the ground.

He was tied into Mark Rosen and there were about 4 others next to Mark who pulled on the rope. This stopped him from hitting the bottom. I have not spoken to anyone who was with Randy at the time of the fall.

Jeff and his group were meeting up with Randy's group. From the stories that were told by the other group in Randy's U of U hospital room while we waited for him to get out of surgery (and while he arrived and tried to rest after surgery) I have surmised that Mark or someone yelled down to him. He didn't respond. They lowered him to the ground another 20 feet or so. Climbed around and down to him. Mark the surgeon addressed his ankles and tried to split them. He knew they were both broken. The right one being a compound fracture (meaning exposed bone). Randy said that he yelled up to the guys, "I have a broken leg!" on his way down.
Some of the faster "runner" types went out of the canyon to call 911. Jeff was told to scout out a landing spot for the chopper. He came back with some wood for the splint. Mark had wanted to make a stretcher and carry Randy out to a good spot, but Jeff said not to move Randy and Mark agreed. The men covered Randy up with all of their extra coats and blankets. (I saw the picture. You could only see Randy's nose sticking out.) The chopper came soon and landed quite close. Who ever was still with Randy helped the chopper guy load Randy onto and into the chopper.

Randy said he was so relieved to see the chopper. He said he was hurting quite badly by then and was cold. He even made some connection with the guy. Knows someone who know's him type thing, but I couldn't understand what Randy was saying by then. He was getting a bit sloppy in his words and was drifting in and out.
The doctors talked to us about his surgery. He was to have both feet worked on. Hopefully fix the left one and put a 'halo' on the right one until the swelling went down enough on it to operate. If time permitted they would put a big cross bar of steel into his pelvis to stablise the brake there. The spine specialist had looked at the breaks in his back. One burst and one compound compression. They said they didn't need to operate on the spine because since he can't walk for so long the back would heal itself while he was laid up. The specialist also said he was very lucky. His back burst went out instead of in. If it had gone in they would need to operate to get all the shards out of his spinal cord fluid. But it went out AND missed all of the nerves. No one could believe that he didn't have any nerve damage. (That would have caused him to be paralized.)

We got word that there was someone in need of an emergency surgery and we would be waiting for them to finish before we could get Randy back. He was sleeping a lot and I was exhausted. It was 8 am and I had not slept yet. The guy who was waiting with us (nurse?) offered to let me sleep in an empty bed next to Randy and he drew the curtain for me. I had trouble falling asleep due to worry and my phone, but I did sleep for at least one solid hour and it was wonderful. I was awakened by the people taking Randy back to surgery. We said our good-byes. I returned some texts, rested a bit and then went to find the waiting room.

My dad was in the waiting room when I arrived. He had been looking all over for me. We waited together for hours. Met a nice man named Ron from Ely Nevada (where my dad was born). After 5 hours I got a call that they were just wrapping up on his left leg. They had put metal plates inside and outside to hold his ankle together and they would be starting on the other foot. I assumed they wouldn't have time for the pelvis and they agreed.
Knowing it would take a long time I went to eat the orange I had packed in Randy's room. I had hoped to rest but the social worker came in to talk with me and give me papers. My dad then found me and we decided to go eat our first meal of the day at 6pm. He had been fasting for Randy! How sweet and surprising.