David Cifaldi was ascending Granite Peak, Montana’s tallest mountain, on July 20 when the incident occurred
Credit: KCENNews/YouTube
NEED TO KNOW
- David Cifaldi, a 32-year-old nurse, was ascending Montana’s Granite Peak with two friends on July 20 when he slipped on some rocks
- As he fell, he impaled himself through the torso with one of his trekking poles
- Cifaldi then had to walk more than 10 miles — which took six and a half hours — to get medical help
A hiking outing in the mountains with friends turned into a traumatic ordeal for David Cifaldi after he suffered a freak accident during the climb.
David Cifaldi, a 32-year-old nurse, was ascending Granite Peak, Montana’s tallest mountain, with two friends on July 20 when he suddenly slipped on some rocks. At that point, the three hikers were about 10 miles into the climb up the 12,799-foot peak.
As he fell, he impaled himself through the torso with one of his trekking poles.
“It was just kind of a freak thing,” the Billings man recalled to KTMF.
“I think my nurse brain kicked on pretty quick. I was able to feel the trekking pole through my skin,” he added to Backpacker magazine, explaining that he proceeded to take several quick breaths to determine that the pole had not pierced his chest or lung.
Cifaldi’s friends snapped pictures of his injury so he could better assess it. On a GoFundMe set up to support Cifaldi, his friend Jess Ross — who was with him during the hike — wrote that the pole “went all the way through his lat, sticking out both ends, with roughly 8 inches between the two holes.”
“I was pretty confident that it was a soft tissue injury,” Cifaldi told Backpacker.
Cifaldi told KTMF that once he had assured himself that the injury was not life-threatening, he was convinced he could walk himself off the mountain.
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“At that point, I was up moving around, walking a little bit, and I was pretty confident that I could keep moving,” he recalled to Backpacker.
With the pole still lodged in his body, Cifaldi and his friends began the more than 10-mile trek back down the mountain, navigating rugged terrain including snowfields and boulder fields. The nurse used his running vest chest strap like a sling, and one of his friends walked behind him to monitor for bleeding.
Several hours into the walk, Cifaldi told Backpacker, the three friends knew they were “gonna make it” and started “making kebab jokes” to lighten things up.
Ross wrote on the GoFundMe that Cifaldi made the trek down “entirely under his own power — never once complaining, staying in remarkably high spirits.”
“Near Mystic Lake, he even asked one of us to hike ahead and warn other hikers, so no children would have to see the wound,” Ross added.
It ultimately took the three hikers more than six hours to reach a trailhead, where Cifaldi was taken to the hospital before being transferred to Intermountain Health in Billings, per KTMF. Doctors later safely removed the trekking pole.
According to the GoFundMe message, Cifaldi is receiving ongoing care and may need surgery in the future.
Reflecting on his accident, Cifaldi told KTMF he feels “very lucky,” adding, “A couple inches the other way, and this would be a different story.”
And despite his ordeal, he’s not done with Granite Peak. The 32-year-old told Backpacker he plans to return to the mountain next year to finish what he started and complete the climb to the summit.
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