Craig DeMartino remembers unhooking his climbing clip and pushing off the cliff wall. He and a buddy had been rock climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park on that summer afternoon in 2002. When DeMartino pushed off, he soon realized he wasn’t attached to anything, the result of a miscommunication with his climbing partner.
He fell an estimated 80 feet backward before hitting a dead tree 20 feet above ground. The impact tipped DeMartino, causing him to fall toward the ground like an arrow.
“I landed standing from 100 feet up,” said DeMartino.
When his feet hit the ground, his body kept moving downward because of the velocity of his fall. His climbing shoes exploded off his feet. A shock wave coursed through his body, causing his L2 vertebra to disintegrate. His neck broke as he crumpled to the ground, still conscious.
Fast forward roughly seven years from the anniversary of the fall and you’ll find DeMartino bouldering outside of Fort Collins with his wife and two children. On the surface, it seems the only difference between their life before and after the fall is that DeMartino has a prosthetic leg. But pain, knowledge and compassion set roots deep into a survivor’s life.
A string of unusual circumstances saved DeMartino’s life that July day. His friend Steve Gorhm, who had more than 20 years of climbing experience, almost never carried a cellphone on climbing trips. That day he had one. And when he dialed 911, he was able to get a cell signal in the rugged wilderness four miles from Estes Park.
Eric Gabriel of Rocky Mountain Rescue took the call. Gabriel, also an avid rock climber, was familiar with where DeMartino had fallen and knew shortcut routes to get to him. Gabriel was stabilizing DeMartino within 30 minutes.
“We had done another major rescue on that same buttress,” said Gabriel. “We had knowledge on how to extricate people from the ground from that location.”
It took a rescue team five hours to carry DeMartino to a spot where a helicopter could pick him up and transport him to Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins. The hardest part for Gabriel, though, wasn’t getting DeMartino to the hospital. It was telling DeMartino’s wife, Cyndy, about the severity of her husband’s injuries.
“Eric made me realize just how serious it was, that they weren’t even necessarily expecting him to survive,” Cyndy said.
Decision to amputate
DeMartino, 43, made it through the night alive, his first major victory. Small daily victories kept him going. To fix his mangled back, doctors took a chunk of his hip bone and put it where his L2 vertebra had been. They fused his back with rods to help stabilize him. And, two months after entering the hospital unsure if he’d survive the night, DeMartino was sent home, his right leg in a cast. He was told he would never ski, bike or climb again, because his leg would never be able to fully function again.
DeMartino felt the doctors might as well have told him to stop breathing. A photographer by trade, his passion was being active outdoors. Over time, he decided the only way he could recapture the fullness of life was to have his right leg amputated below the knee. Sixteen months after leaving the hospital, he had the operation and was fitted for a prosthetic leg that would help him regain full mobility again. DeMartino’s climb back up the mountain had begun.
Last week, as Cyndy and Craig tackled a boulder on the southeast side of Horsetooth Reservoir, Mayah, 10, and William, 8, scrambled up rocks. They timed each other to see who could reach the top of the boulder the quickest. It doesn’t seem to faze them that their dad has a titanium leg or that he still climbs after nearly falling to his death.
“We’re used to it,” Mayah said. “That’s what he does.”
And that’s the way Cyndy wants to keep it.
“I don’t want my kids to grow up in fear,” she said.
DeMartino talks with war veterans and trauma survivors who have lost limbs or are scheduled to have a limb replaced. He wants to help them navigate their new lives.
“I don’t talk to many climbers, but last summer a climber fell and lost his leg,” said DeMartino. Seeing the climber at the lowest of lows helped DeMartino realize how far he has come, and how lucky he is. He doesn’t blame his climbing buddy, saying the fall was a simple miscommunication.
Big picture now clear
DeMartino participates in rock climbing competitions, including the Extremity Games, where he won double gold (bouldering and top rope) earlier this month. The competition is for athletes who have lost limbs or have limb differences. He also holds his own against able-bodied athletes, too. At the Teva Mountain Games in June, he finished second in the citizen bouldering competition.
The journey back from a near-death experience has been much more than just adjusting to pain, pins and screws.
“I was going through life just doing my thing, pretty self-absorbed,” said DeMartino. “We had a great marriage, had a great family, but it was kind of missing the overall bigger picture of stuff. Once you see how much you have to lose, I don’t think you really understand that until you almost lose it.”
Anica Wong: 303-954-1720 or awong@denverpost.com
Then and now
A look at the injuries Craig DeMartino suffered in a fall seven years ago and what he’s achieved competitively since:
Injuries
Dislocated heels and ankle breaks in both legs
Crushed L2 vertebra
Broken ribs on right side
Punctured lung
Cracked right elbow
Broken C6 neck disc
Multiple cuts and abrasions
Reflex sympathetic dystrophy developed in right leg three months after accident
Achievements
Won gold in both bouldering and top rope competitions at Extremity Games in 2007 and 2009
Finished second at the 2009 Teva Games in the citizen bouldering competition
