VANCOUVER – What started out as a quick hike to take photographs of an island in the Strait of Georgia, turned into a three-day battle to survive for Jordan Nicurity.
The photographer, 26, was climbing a Hornby Island rock face last month when chunk of sandstone broke free, sending him plummeting six metres to the ground below.
The fall broke Nicurity’s pelvis in three places and injured his right foot, leaving him unable to walk.
He had no food or water except a “gulp” of tea in a Thermos, no cellphone and no one who knew where he was hiking.
“I reached for the rock and a three-foot-square piece of rock came off,” a wheelchair-bound Nicurity said Tuesday during a news conference in the lobby of Vancouver General Hospital. “It spun me around and down I went, 20 feet. I found myself lying in a heap of rocks down by the water. I couldn’t believe I didn’t get knocked out.
“I knew things weren’t very good, but I could wiggle my toes and heard some ugly crunching sounds from my hip. It was when I tried to extricate myself from the rocks that I knew I was in pretty rough shape.”
Nicurity cut some leather straps off his army surplus pants and fashioned a harness to pull his legs along the ground.
“I wanted to get above the high-tide line,” said Nicurity, a Regina native who was visiting friends on Hornby Island.
He said he spent the first night huddling on the beach. He planned to light a driftwood signal fire the second day, but rain ruined that plan.
He spent the second night under a driftwood teepee someone had built on the beach. He was so thirsty he drank diluted sea water, which made him vomit.
On Day 3, he summoned all his energy, knowing he had to make his way to higher ground and find water.
Nicurity managed to clamber up to a meadow. He was badly dehydrated and was thrilled to find a nut shell filled with rainwater – “the greatest thing ever.”
Nicurity knew there were hikers around, but had to get closer to them.
“I’d do 10 crawls and then pass out,” he said. “It took me two hours to make it 75 yards. When I saw the hikers, it was my glimmer of hope. I started yelling as loud as I could.”
The hikers heard a sound – which they thought was a baby eagle – and discovered Nicurity.
He was taken to hospital in Comox and then airlifted to VGH, where he spent a week in critical condition. He plans to fly back to Regina today and is looking at a six-month recovery, said trauma surgeon Dr. David Evans.
So would he hike again? “As soon as I can get up and motoring again.”
Vancouver Province
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