Weekend Whipper: Dislocated Ankle at Garden of the Gods

Philip Rodriguez finds an ankle-twister on Potholes (5.7), Garden of the Gods, Colorado.

“When I fell, my climbing partner Warren Maddox shouted out to see if I was OK, and initially I thought everything was fine,” Rodriguez tells Rock and Ice. “I was going to get back on the route when I saw that my foot was sideways! No pain, but it was very shocking to see it like that.”

He dislocated his left ankle in the fall. A team of paramedics came to the scene and discovered that Rodriguez had lost circulation to his foot, “so they had to relocate it right then and there before the tissue started to die,” Rodriguez says. The paramedics decided that it was safest to cut off his climbing shoe before relocating his ankle, and administered pain medication beforehand. “No ‘bite the bullet’ circumstances,” Rodriguez says, “however I was definitely still lucid and remember the crunching feeling very clearly.”

“The paramedics were so amazing,” he adds. “They even retrieved our quickdraws for us.”

Moreover, after the accident, Rodriguez e-mailed Jamie Lynch at La Sportiva, “detailing the unfortunate demise of my shoes,” he says. “And they were gracious enough to send me a replacement pair for free! I wanted to give them a shout-out if possible. It really meant a lot to me that they care about their customers enough to help in unfortunate times.”

Rodriguez is slowly recovering and hopes to be climbing again this spring. “Wearing a helmet!” he says.

Happy Friday and watch out for ankle traps this weekend.

Watch last week’s Weekend Whipper: Forty Footer in Escalante Canyon