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Our Brother’s Keepers

From July 28th to July 30th, University of North Carolina-Greensboro Colony members Luke Kaiser, Greg Meyer, and Nick Herr went to Linville Gorge, about an hour away from Asheville, North Carolina, to take a three day hike. They hiked in about noon on Monday. The trail led them down to the river, and they continued to follow the trail up to their first campsite. As they set up camp on Monday night, a large thunderstorm came over the mountains. They sat out the storm, happy that they had the tent to protect them from the rain. Tuesday morning, they woke up and headed out about 9:00 a.m. As they followed the river to their next campsite, they rounded a corner and saw a man crawling up the trail towards them.

When they got closer, the man looked up and said, “Ahh, three young saviors!” He began to tell them what had happened to him. “I was rock jumping down the river for a while and didn’t miss a rock all day. I got to the place where I was gonna get back on the trail, but decided to make one last jump. I jumped a bigger gap than I thought and felt something crack. The gap must have been about 8-10 feet. I crawled under a rock and tried to sleep for the night. I woke up this morning and automatically thought that I might die. I decided that I wasn’t going to go like that and crawled over to the trail. I have been crawling for about two hours using my sandals as kneepads and am really glad you guys came along when you did.”

The boys automatically recognized that the man had broken most of the bones in his legs from the knee down. His shins and feet were entirely purple. He also had at most a liter of water and half an energy bar. The young men knew they had to go get help. They tried to use Meyer’s cell phone to call, but got no signal. The boys ran back up the trail about a mile to a path that led straight out of the Gorge. After climbing about 500 yards up, Meyer got cell phone service. He called 911, and was asked to meet them at the top of the exit and take them to the injured hiker. Kaiser and Herr turned to go back to the injured man. Meyer had the hardest job: the path that they had intended to take hiking out of had been closed for two years. This would have been extremely difficult for the three healthy hikers, but it would have been impossible with an injured man.

Finally, Meyer returned with two EMS responders. They gave the injured man a morphine drip and began planning their helicopter pickup. After the boys made sure that everything was taken care of, they said their goodbyes and headed off to the campsite, just like they had planned all day. It was one of the best moments of their entire life and truly renewed their faith in the human spirit.

 

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