Malcolm Daly, a founder of Paradox Sports and Great Trango Holdings—the parent company of Trango Climbing—is in the hospital following a stroke, according to a news report on snewsnet.com.

“Malcom’s wife, Karen, reported on Facebook that the stroke was the result of a clot in a large artery in the left side of his brain. Malcolm was helicoptered to Boise ICU, where doctors successfully removed the clot,” Kristin Hostetter wrote in the piece.

Daly, 65, is now stable. His family has set up up a GoFundMe campaign to help with the growing medical costs.

“Malcolm has regained the strength on his right side but still has some significant heart and neurological issues to address,” the GoFundMe page reads. “He will remain in the ICU stroke center for a while. Sadly, no one is allowed in to the hospital so we are all hanging tight in our specific locations until we can see him safely.”

Daly, a larger-than-life personality who was a mainstay of Colorado’s Front Range climbing scene for decades—until moving to Idaho two weeks ago—and a sales clerk at Neptune Mountaineering in recent years, is on the up and up. “On FaceTime last night he was his cheerful babbling self. You gotta love this guy,” his family wrote on the GoFundMe page.

Daly has been climbing for over 40 years. Famously, on May 21, 1999, while attempting a new route with Jim Donini on Thunder Mountain in the Alaska Range, Daly took a lead fall and broke both of his legs.

A recap and analysis of the accident that appeared in Accidents in North American Mountaineering 2000 reads:

In May 21st at 0300, Daly and Donini continued their climb in the couloir reaching the high point at approximately 2,500 feet above the glacier. At 1030, Daly, who was leading the pitch believes he was hit with a chunk of snow or ice that knocked him off the route. Donini was able to hold the fall even though he was struck by Daly’s crampons. Daly was knocked unconscious, but regained consciousness shortly thereafter and was able to talk to Donini. The one piece of protection that failed during the fall was a short ice screw 15 feet below Daly. Daly had put several ice screws on a vertical pillar 70 feet below and then climbed a lower-angle snow ramp to the vertical section on which he fell. After the fall Donini rigged an ice ax as a splint and wrapped tape around Daly’s boots in an effort to stabilize both his legs. Donini lowered Daly approximately 200 feet, but then decided that without air splints or some other means of stabilizing Daly’s open fractures he might bleed to death or go into shock. They both decided the best choice was for Donini to descend to get help. Donini was able to rappel some of the route and down-climbed the lower section. Paul Roderick of Talkeetna Air Taxi who was flying over the site at the time spotted Donini and landed.

Roderick alerted Denali National Park rangers of the situation and flew Donini back to Talkeetna. Daly was finally rescued in a complex operation nearly 48 hours later on the morning of May 23.

His feet were later amputated due to the combination of injury and frostbite.

Daly went on to be a founding board member of both Paradox Sports and No Barriers, both non-profits that help disabled individuals enjoy the outdoors and engage in sports like climbing and hiking.

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