{"id":2467000,"date":"2018-12-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/uncategorized\/crashing-down\/"},"modified":"2021-06-30T14:58:07","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T14:58:07","slug":"crashing-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/outdoor-adventure\/climbing\/crashing-down\/","title":{"rendered":"How a 13-Year-Old Saved His Dad’s Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Finlayson: <\/strong>I\u2019d been taking Charlie into the backcountry<\/a> since he was a baby. In 2015, when he was 13, we planned a trip to climb these granite towers about 13 miles into Frank Church\u2013River of No Return Wilderness, in Idaho. A week in, we were about 1,000 feet up a tower. There was loose rock, so I anchored Charlie off to a tree to belay me while I did some route finding. That\u2019s when I heard the crack.<\/p>\n

Charlie\u00a0Finlayson: <\/strong>I didn\u2019t see the boulder hit him, but I saw the rock flake he was standing on come off the wall.<\/p>\n

David<\/strong>: My left arm was above my head, and the boulder snapped it, crushed my helmet, and broke my back and my left leg. I ended up 40 feet below Charlie.<\/p>\n

Charlie<\/strong>: I couldn\u2019t see him, because there was this bush in the way, so I didn\u2019t know if he was alive. He was silent for like five minutes. I kept shouting, asking if he could hear me.<\/p>\n

David<\/strong>: I woke up and heard Charlie yelling. I told him I was OK but bleeding and needed the first aid kit<\/a>. He lowered it down, then rappelled to me and lowered me another 20 feet to a ledge, where he helped me get bandaged. We were so far up the wall, I thought I might bleed out before we got down. But I just couldn\u2019t say, \u201cHey, I might not make it.\u201d I told him that if I passed out, he should tie me off to the wall and go. It took us until nightfall to reach the bottom.<\/p>\n

Charlie<\/strong>: There was one point where I knew he was delirious, because he said, \u201cOK, you can scramble from here, it looks pretty flat.\u201d We were still 100 feet up.<\/p>\n

David<\/strong>: Charlie went to our camp in the dark to get sleeping bags, water, and food. We stayed up all night talking. He\u2019d doze off, then pop up to make sure I was awake. At first light, he got me moving very slowly back to camp. Many times I said, \u201cCharlie, I can\u2019t go any farther.\u201d He\u2019d say, \u201cLet me help you make it another inch.\u201d At camp, I told him he had to go get help.<\/p>\n

Charlie<\/strong>: I said, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not going out by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

David<\/strong>: That was emotional. I wasn\u2019t too worried about him getting lost, but there might not be anybody at the trailhead. The next morning he was ready. He said, \u201cI guess I better get going.\u201d He gave me a big hug and left.<\/p>\n

Charlie<\/strong>: About three miles from camp, I ran into a couple of hikers, who told me there was a big group behind them. I asked them to check on my dad, and I kept going. At first I didn\u2019t see anyone else, so I blew my whistle. This guy ran up to me and then went to get a ranger. That\u2019s when I knew that my dad was going to make it.<\/p>\n

David<\/strong>: I had my final round of surgeries in December. I\u2019m still recovering<\/a>, but we did an all-day climb a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n

As told to Will Cockrell.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Finlayson fell off the granite towers in Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. The only person who could save him? His 13-year-old son.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92531,"featured_media":2372516,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"uuid":"b6efb08addd7ef522afbf2fc55cd2af7","footnotes":""},"categories":[2543],"tags":[2633,2994,2640,2975],"byline":[401],"ad_cat":[],"legacy-category":[],"class_list":["post-2467000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climbing","tag-bags","tag-boulder","tag-climbing","tag-first-aid","byline-will-cockrell"],"acf":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"How a 13-Year-Old Saved His Dad’s Life","url":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/outdoor-adventure\/climbing\/crashing-down\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/outdoor-adventure\/climbing\/crashing-down\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/03\/crashing-down_h.jpg","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/03\/crashing-down_h.jpg"},"articleSection":"Climbing","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"mlaplante"}],"creator":["mlaplante"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online","logo":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/favicon-194x194-1.png"},"keywords":["bags","boulder","climbing","first aid"],"dateCreated":"2018-12-27T00:00:00Z","datePublished":"2018-12-27T00:00:00Z","dateModified":"2021-06-30T14:58:07Z"},"rendered":"