"...Badly, badly sprained ankle..." Yes that must have hurt and I bet my climbing partner with the fractured ankle (confirmed by x-ray in Anchorage) was feeling some pain too but we climbed for 11 more days.

People have different experiences with pain and injury and what they can do. When I injured my leg skiing it was a real musco-skeletal injury and very painful. Painful enough that getting up from sitting was excruciating so I did not sit down much. I also did not have full range of motion due to pain. I checked with an orthopedic surgeon friend to see if there was a chance for permanent injury and kept skiing since the trip was part of an advanced avalanche course that would be difficult to for me repeat later.

My outdoor background is mostly from the mountaineering school that considers "bivouac" a French word for "mistake" and self-reliance not optional but necessary. As I said before, there are just too many examples of athletes, climbers and explorers performing at better than just sitting and waiting for help levels while injured and in pain to accept that sitting and waiting is always the best option.

I bet Tyler Hamilton was a bit uncomfortable when he finished 4th at the 2003 Tour de France with a broken collar bone and other injuries from a serious crash. Nah, on second thought he must have been fine since he only needed to have a few teeth replaced from the grinding due to pain.

When Doug Scott Fell on the Ogre and smashed both of his knees he didn't whine about it, he just crawled out. But he probably didn't really hurt himself and was just looking for sympathy.

Sir Douglas Mawson tied the skin from the soles of his frozen feet back on and kept walking alone in Antarctica to get to help. He was probably not in much pain though since frozen feet don't hurt until they thaw anyway.

When one of my friends crashed badly on her last lap of a 24 hr mountain bike race in Italy, smashing her helmet, face, and right leg in the process, she just taped her foot to the bike pedal and finished the race. Then she went to the hospital as a formality since she probably wasn't in pain at the time even though her leg required surgery to repair after she got back to the US.

When a bear mauling victim in Alaska, whom I learned of through photos while taking a WEMT class, ran about a quarter mile back to the trail head he was probably ok. Even thought according to surgeons his leg should not have even been able to support body weight due to the bone and muscle damage.

The Wyoming gas pipeline inspector who arrived in the OR where I work had enough composure to shut of safety valves and then drive herself several miles to get cell phone reception with something like 80% full thickness burns was probably not in much pain. We've all learned that full thickness burns hurt less than partial thickness burns because of the nerves being destroyed.

My point is that people can keep going while tired, injured and in pain if they want to and try. I've seen too many examples on climbing trips, in adventure races and working in an operating room of injured people who did more to help themselves and others than just sit down and wait to have much sympathy for those that do when self rescue is a good option.


Sorry for the rant but this topic is one that gets me worked up a bit.