An Arizona man is still recovering from a wild 700-foot fall he suffered while trying to summit the highest point in Oregon last month — but says that when he’s better, he’s going back to beat the mountain that almost killed him.
Chris Zwierzynski, 55, of Scottsdale, is lucky to be alive after taking a terrifying tumble on the slopes of Oregon’s Mount Hood on July 6, according to Channel 12 News in Arizona.
“This doesn’t happen to everybody,” Zwierzynski told the station. “Most of the doctors that I talk to — and my friends, my family — everyone’s using the word ‘miracle,’ like I’m some kind of miracle for having survived this fall. Maybe I am.”
Zwierzynski said he made a pact with himself when he turned 50 to climb the highest points in each state. He’s been ticking off the Western peaks lately since those are generally much higher and more difficult.
“I want to do that while I’m still young,” he said.
But his excursion on the 11,200-foot mountain just east of Portland went south at some point, and the National Guard had to airlift him to the hospital after his brutal fall.
He spent four days in intensive care, his face bloody and his body mangled.
His extensive injuries — which included broken ribs and a broken ankle — left him nearly unrecognizable, according to his wife, Laurie.
“His eyes were swollen shut, [his] eye sockets were broken,” she told the station. “His nose was broken in two places. He had two brain bleeds and a concussion.”
Despite the fearsome toll the fall exacted on his body, Zwierzynski said he was only thinking about his family as he was stuck in the hospital bed.
“I [couldn’t] imagine what they were going through, hearing this news,” the climber said.
Laurie said she barely remembers when she got the call telling her that her husband had fallen.
“I was in shock,” she said. “I didn’t know what happened, I didn’t know what’s going on, and the only thing I could do was pray and trust that God had this and keep going forward.”
The resilient couple said they got through the horrors with positive thinking — and faith.
“He could have been brain-dead, he could have been paralyzed, he could have [gotten] amnesia,” Laurie said. “All different things could have happened that didn’t. And I praise God for that every day.”
Meanwhile, Zwierzynski was creating deadlines for his recovery.
“I was putting goals on myself as I was laying in the hospital room,” he said. “’I’m gonna be discharged on Monday, I’m gonna be walking on this day, I’m gonna be getting up and doing this on this day.’”
And it seems to be working.
“These things all happened — just don’t give up,” Zwierzynski said. “Your body is strong enough to endure.”
Earlier this month, a CT scan showed Zwierzynski’s facial fractures were “healing nicely,” according to an Aug. 9 update to a GoFundMe the family set up to help with medical expenses.
Doctors also removed a splint from his left ankle, and he’s begun therapy to regain his lost mobility, Zwierzynski wrote.
“There is still quite a bit of numbness and discomfort on my right side where my ribs have been plated, but that is improving each day,” he said. “My body still becomes quite fatigued later in each day. I am sure this is because I cannot sit still.
“As such, I have not been the best patient and I get grouchy when I am told I cannot do something,” he continued.
“Regardless, I have not lost my will nor my positive attitude. This fact is due, in no small part, to your support and friendship.”
And he’s already said that’s not done with the mountain that almost took his life.
“I’ll probably contact one of the guides and have them go with me, just so I don’t tempt fate,” Zwierzynski said.
“But I think it definitely is doable.”
