Misadventures in Yunnan, China
“Okay on me,” I instruct my belayer as I begin my ascent again up the sandstone dihedral crack. I work my way upwards, feet creating counter pressure on the wall for my fingers slotted tightly into the narrow vertical crack. I was disappointed with my attempt. I had blown my flash attempt (first attempt at a rock climb) and was struggling to make any progress at all up this seemingly moderate climb. I had just placed a small Metolius cam as my third piece of rock protection. These cams are what would stop my arrest my downward force if I fell.
I struggle my way through three or four moves, placing my last cam a few inches below my feet. “Take.” I resign myself to down climbing to the cam so I don’t have to fall at all. “Take the small fall!” I hear from the base of the climb. Without another thought, I freely let go of the rock.
My eyes open and I’m sitting on the ground.
Holy shit, I just decked. I’d fallen.
Still in disbelief, I reach my hand up to the crown of my head and it comes back scarlet red.
“Don’t move Levi. Breathe and relax,”
It had been nearly two weeks since I had first arrived in China, here to document the trad rock climbing taking place in a remote village of the Yunnan Province. A flight from Denver to LA, then LA to Beijing, Chengdu, and finally Lijiang brought me as near to the village as a plane can. From the ancient city of Lijiang, I traveled by van the two hours it takes through the foothills and early mountain passes of the Himalayas to reach the small village of Liming. The small village was home to only a few people, mostly catering to the few visitors who came to the area for the beautiful scenery and most recently, the rock climbers. Situated only 50 miles from the border of Myanmar and 80 miles from Tibet, this is about as remote a place as I had ever been. I hailed a driver to take me to the last leg of my journey, a 3-hour ride winding through the mountains and away from civilization. After a bumpy ride through the Chinese countryside, I stepped out of the transit van and looked upon what seemed a Chinese fairytale village.
Ornate wooden doors with animals and scenes and the beauty of nature were carved with skilled hands lined every building. A road of rough-hewn stone blocks made the only road in and out of town, covered in red earth from the tires of the farmers' trucks coming to town to sell their produce and livestock. The valley surrounding Liming village seemed to be out of a fairytale, the yellow grasses swayed in the wind on the hills and were met with a stark wall of red sandstone, like that of Zion National Park or Moab.
Immediately after bringing my eyes down from the hills surrounding me, I was greeted by the familiar images of rock climbers. Bright, ragged puffy jackets and hand-knitted beanies along with the biggest sign of all, torn and beaten hands that had been shoved into cracks and contracted to ascend these mighty walls.
This climbing oasis had gathered other adventurers like myself it seemed from all over the world. Canadians, Russians, Czech, Brazilian, and of course Chinese climbers were all represented here. All collected there must have been 15 of us climbing those two weeks. Climbing, laughing, eating. All from different walks of life are brought together by the joy and freedom climbing can bring.
Most all of them had been present for my quite literal fall from grace. I had fallen around 25 feet, ripping my two protective rock pieces from the wall in the process. As I fell and the first cam came out of the crack, my heels caught the less-than-vertical rock, flipping me upside-down and knocking me out in the process as my head came into contact with the wall. The force of the fall was enough to rip the second cam out as well, meaning there was nothing anyone or anything could do to keep me from slamming into the earth below head first.
Quickly before moving on I just want to talk about the climbing protective pieces I was using, cams. Cams are designed to catch a fall. And they work when placed correctly. They work by converting the downward force into a huge amount of outward pressure on the sides of the crack. It is this outwards pressure that holds the cam in position. The reason my cams didn’t hold was user error. I had placed them incorrectly and it had nearly cost me my life. My mistake was assuming that the cam would stop my fall because I could rest my body weight on it when the weight of a fall, even a small one, is a much more substantial downward force.
As I sat on the ground I try piecing together what had just happened. I feel no pain other than a slight burning on my arm. It seems I scraped it on the rock at some point. The adrenaline is keeping any pain at bay. I struggle to listen to my friends' concerns, most likely severely concussed from my head making contact with the rock during my fall. I follow a finger in front of my face, my eyes are tracking, good. Can I wiggle my toes? Yes, everything feels fine. They only wound too severe to think about currently being my pride. So much of my identity was being a climber, an adventurer. This fall from a moderate climb I felt was damaging to how these people viewed me as a colleague. I do everything I can to lighten the mood. I don’t want to be a burden or ruin everyone else’s time here. And at this point, I still have relatively zero pain from the adrenaline coursing through me. I attempt small humor, ask my friends to document with photos, and insist that it’s not as bad as it seems. I feel the cold water running over my head and down my back, cleaning the wound on my head. Soft cloth from a first aid kit lighting dabbing at the blood that has started to harden in my hair around the wound. Climbing tape follows to keep the bandage in place.
Quickly the discussion turns to medical attention. What do we do now that I am stable? The trail leading down from the cliff to the road is a simple dirt path and very steep. Concerns about my depth perception and injuring myself on the hike down are shared by my friends. Are they seriously considering I be carried down? I flat-out refuse. I will not be leaving this cliff unless it is under my own strength. They begrudgingly agree, but only if I let someone else carry my things down and agree to a hospital visit. I honestly thought a hospital visit was overkill. If I can hike out a mile under my own weight and have no pain why bother with the hospital? Let's get some butterfly band-aids and call it a day! Anyways I was broke and couldn’t imagine what they do to foreigners in China who can’t pay their hospital bills. I agree for the sake of agreeing until everyone sees that it really is not that bad though.
Two others accompany me down the cliff. The person I knew best and had climbed with most and our mutual friend who spoke both Mandarin and English and acted as my translator. The descent quickly brought on a dull throb to the crown of my head. Each step downward jarred me a little bit more until I had a pretty decent headache once we were roadside. Normally once you reach this main road you would walk it for about a mile or so to make it to town. To my surprise, there was a very concerned Chinese man smoking a cigarette in a car waiting for us. It seemed that my friend the translator had arranged this pickup while I was working my way slowly down from the base of the climb. We piled in and headed to the village of Liming. Stepping out of the van I headed to my room and a mirror. I wanted to access the situation for myself. “Shit” is the only thing I could say after snapping a picture in the mirror's reflection. This for sure needed stitches and there was no way to convince anyone otherwise. It seems I was the last one to take the seriousness of the injury to the heart. What’s more, is what we couldn’t see. A concussion seemed likely but what about a brain bleed? I had torpedoed head-first to the ground from the height of a two-story building. Panic started rising in my chest, bubbling up at the thought that this may be a life-altering injury.
My climbing bag gets dumped onto the floor and packed with some clothes and essentials for an overnight trip. We knew I needed a hospital with an MRI machine to access my brain's condition which meant a long journey. Lijiang was the closest which meant a grueling 3-hour ride back through the mountains. We weren’t sure of the extent of the injury so booking accommodation in Lijiang that night seemed prudent. In a rush, my translator and friend piled back into the same car and we were off. 3 hours of Chinese backroads with nothing to think about but the growing pain all throughout my body. My chest, my arms, and my head were by far in the worst amount of pain. It felt like someone was slowly ripping my head open at the seams. After what felt like an eternity, we arrived at the hospital.
No one is a fan of hospitals I am sure, but this hospital was like nothing I had seen in my travels around the world. The building seemed almost derelict in a way. Only half of the lights appeared to work or they only kept half of the lights on in hallways. It made the whole place seem in disuse. My translator heads to the front desk and informs me I need to pay the entrance fee to see a doctor. Only $25 USD and I pay it gladly. We are shuffled into a smaller room filled with natural light coming in. There are two doctors in the room situated at tables under these windows. Each doctor had three students behind them observing the professional with medical books, learning while also assisting the doctors. I stood in line for a few moments before it was my turn. I sat down on a wooden stool while my translator helped describe my situation. The students gathered around to observe my head wound while the doctor wrote what seemed to be a receipt in Mandarin. It was translated to me that I would need a tetanus shot (they refused to do anything until I had one), stitches, and an MRI scan to make sure my brain was undamaged. But first I had to pay for treatment.
It cost me $200 USD for an MRI, antibiotic shot, and stitches. I paid in cash.
The plan was to get my MRI, then my stitches and shot while we waited for the MRI to develop. Once it had I could take it to the doctor to analyze it and give me the all-clear or reassess what needed to be done.
After paying at the front desk, I am given a barcode on my medical receipt the doctor gave to me. This seemed to work as my running tab. Anytime I walked into a new room and needed medical help the doctor or nurse would scan this barcode and see what the doctors had written in my file and what I had (and hadn’t) paid for.
My translator instructs me that the MRI machine is in another building so we leave the hospital and cross a busy side street. The front of this building has a rolling led sign across the front of it right over the doors with a few machines to the side that look almost like ATMs. The sign scrolls across with characters in mandarin that I would find out were patients' names. It seems that once your MRI scan was complete, you would go to one of these machines that looked like ATMs, scan your barcode, and your MRI scan would print out. It was then your responsibility to take it to your doctor for them to read you your scan.
There wasn’t much of a wait for the MRI and it was right inside the doors of the building. I quickly had my MRI done and then walked back over to the main hospital to get my stitches.
I went back to the room that had the doctors sitting and examining patients and my translator went to speak with the doctor who had given me the original diagnosis. He stood up and mentioned for two other medical students to follow him. They led me down one of the dimly lit hallways to a room. The room was well-lit with white light but sparse. A wooden stool, a metal table around waist-high, and cabinets along the outer wall were all that the room held. I was motioned to sit down on the stool and take my seat. Not long after the doctor starts a conversation with my translator. The doctor tells me through the translator to rest my forehead on the cold metal table and applies gentle pressure to the back of my neck. My forehead is resting on the edge of the table now and all I can see is my orange and black shoes against the grimy tile floor of the hospital. The doctor’s tone seems to have shifted now as he talks to the translator. They continue on in conversation without offering any translation long enough to make me feel uncomfortable. I can feel my palms sweating wondering what there could be to discuss that I wouldn’t need to know about. “I’m sorry friend,” my translator says “the doctor won’t let me stay in the room while he performs, I’ll have to wait outside.” My heart skips a beat. Click. The door shuts.
I feel the dread and panic washing over me. What if I have questions? What if the doctor needs to tell me something? I feel a grip of a firm hand on the back of my neck and the situation I find myself in becomes all too real. There is a certain amount of panic that trickles into my system as I feel a razor on the top of my head. The medical students are cutting my hair with a razor, removing any hair from near the wound. It is at this point that my solitude in this predicament has wholly set in. I am snapped out of my thoughts by the discomfort of the doctor pinching my skin together near the base of the wound. The pain of the doctor’s work is quickly replaced by adrenaline and the smell of iodine. I feel the liquid trickle down my face and watch it make small orange drips on the floor from my chin. I get nauseous and feel my stomach dropping knowing that this is going to hurt like a bitch. I focus on getting some deep breaths in and out waiting for the local anesthetic to prick my head. Instead of the expected downward pinch of the syringe needle delivering the anesthetic, I feel like someone has driven the yarn needle through my scalp and pulled the yarn through, piercing the other side of the wound.
I realize they are literally sewing my head wound closed with thread. And without the use of any anesthetic.
I immediately resigned myself to passing out. There is no way I am going to stay conscious through all this pain flooding down from the top of my head. I feel the next pass of the needle through my wound and synch down as he pulls the line taught. I start whooping and yelling trying to keep myself awake. Half out of fear from not knowing what would happen if I passed out and a half from a deep desire not to be the weak American that couldn’t handle his stitches. With every pass of the needle, my breathing gets more ragged and frail. I fight to stay present and not give in to passing out. Just when I felt that my fatigue had surpassed my pride my head was brought up by a hand on the back of my neck. A patch of gauze is placed on the newly stitched wound. My head is swimming and my vision is spinning. I feel like my tongue is too big for my mouth and I have lost the ability to speak. A pair of arms are on either side of me, lifting me from my wooden stool. Through my blurred vision, I can see the metal table covered in blood matter, iodine, and blonde hair. The two people who helped me rise from my seat tried to help me reach the door. I have no sense of balance and can’t get my legs to stay under me so they drag me from the underarms out of the room and into the hallway. They grab my hands and place them on the railing that lines the hallway. From here, I am on my own and the doctor and his students leave me to cling to the rail, desperate to regain control over my own body.
Alone in this dimly lit hallway, I grasp at the railing, the only thing not spinning in my mind. My legs barely seem to work like a new colt standing up for the first time. I look down the hallway to see my friend and my translator sitting on plastic seats lining the far side of the hall. If I could just speak out to them I know they will keep me safe. My tongue still feels foreign in my mouth, unable to form words yet I still try to call out to them. They can’t hear me; I was still too far away. I attempt two or three steps before my brain has enough. Desperately gripping the handrail and to consciousness, I start dry heaving and feel my vision tunneling. Out of nowhere, a firm hand grabs me under either arm again and I am dragged down the hallway to my friends, to safety.
“Don’t you dare leave me again,” I tell them as soon as regain my ability to speak, some 10 minutes later.
Over the course of the next thirty minutes, I gain my composure and walk behind a partition to get my tetanus shot. I had to have it by the doctors' orders but they gave it to me after everything else, what sense does that make? I share a moment of levity with the nurse administering the shot as we struggle to communicate where I was being given the shot. Google translate doesn’t translate ass cheek from Mandarin to English very well apparently.
After this, we all play the waiting game for the MRI scans. An hour later I was holding my CT scans by the scrolling board. By now it was dark and we headed back to the front desk to so they could call the doctor to read my scans. He had gone home. The nurse was kind enough to look over my information though and in her opinion, everything looked fine. I didn’t have a brain bleed (most likely). At this point that was good enough for me. It had been nearly 9 hours after the accident and I hadn’t had anything to numb my pain. Everything hurt. I just wanted to get out of this hospital.
So we left. I just walked out into the street. At this point, we realized none of us had eaten since a light breakfast that morning, so my two friends went to get some food from one of the many street vendors while I walked to our bed and breakfast accommodation a few hundred yards away. That night was nothing but pain. My head was oozing through the bandages and every inch of my being felt as though it had been beaten with a baseball bat. It was a restless night where any time I moved I felt the pain.
After a short night, I sat up in bed and felt the top of my tender head. The bandage was becoming hard and crusty, no doubt blood had been coming through the stitches in the night and soaking the bandage. I decided to remove the bandage so that I could see what the damage was like up there. I took my phone in hand and faced the front camera at the wound while taking a video. When I watched it back I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It looked as though the doctors had sewn my head up with some type of thick black silk thread. It wasn’t some thin delicate wire-type thread though that we may be used to seeing here in the western world, it was as thick as any sewing thread I had seen for clothes or blankets. And it was tight. Insanely tight. It was at least half an inch taller than the rest of my scalp from how tight the stitches were.
A few glasses of green tea and photos to document the experience was how I coped with my frustration, anger, and embarrassment at the situation I found myself in. I knew that I had to return to Liming for my things and I wanted to make sure that I thanked all the people that had helped me in one mom my most vulnerable moments. That meant another 3-hour ride by bus to the village. 3 more hours of headache, chest pain, and general fatigue. This trip was more pleasant than the last though and I had the comfort of knowing I would see friendly faces again with a large welcome feast before the night was over.
Once I reached the village I slowly walked down the familiar path to my hostel. Each step was painful but brought me closer to relief at the same time. It seems most of the climbers are still out making use of the day on the walls, so I start to pack my things until it's time for dinner. I say hello to my friends who hadn’t climbed that day and we head off to dinner to get a table for everyone. Slowly my sun-drenched friends begin arriving at the dinner table, eager to hear my story to and grateful that I am in high spirits. Our table is joined by some of the other local climbers who had heard about the accident until we are nearly 15 total surrounding the large wooden table.
Everyone wants information on what happened during the climb that caused the fall and about the ensuing trip to the hospital that happened after. So, for the first time, I start recalling the climb move by move. They want every minutia of detail I can give. I feel uncomfortable but I can’t put my finger on why. I know these people care about me right? I go over my first placement and my second. I’m on to describe placing my third cam and how I placed it at a bad angle and shallow. “It was a complete user error,” I confess. I realize my palms are sweating. My heart is in my throat and I can’t seem to get my heart rate down. Why am I panicking? “That’s not what happened” An objection comes from across the table. Someone else explains why they believe the two cams pulled. Never in a million years did I think I would have to defend my story to these people. I had just told them it was my fault and my fault alone. I feel the rising tide of a panic attack as the talking continues. The talking gets louder and more heated with others jumping in. More questions. More arguing. I start questioning why I ever came back here. “I don’t think I’m ready to talk about this,” I spew out. “Oh no, you talked about the hospital visit all day!” a member of the table says. I realize that I am being accused of not taking this seriously. That me documenting the fall and hospital trip somehow makes it lesser in their minds. I put my head down and show everyone my torn scalp and the thick black silk still oozing with blood from an accident that happened just over 24 hours ago. I less than calmly remind them all that I understand the consequences of my actions and that they were my choices to live with for the rest of my life. The table falls instantly silent. I can feel the heat of everyone staring at me. “Well at least you’re okay that’s all that really matters,” softly gets spoken to try and ease the tension. “It sure feels that way,” I say as I stand up and leave them all there at the table.
I lie in bed, head pounding through my stitches, body drenched in sweat. I’ve covered myself in my blanket and sheet, unable to bring myself to do anything but fixate on the fall, over and over in a miserable loop. As hard as I try to bring myself out of this panic and anxiety I can't. My friend who went to the hospital with me comes in to check on me after I left dinner. We discuss what happened at the table and how I felt invalidated as a climber. It was as though a part of my identity had been lost at that cliff yesterday.
I take out my anger on my climbing helmet. It had always been a ceremonious piece of climbing gear for me. I brought it but never had any intention of actually wearing the damn thing. I pick it up and throw it across the room causing sharp stabbing pain in my chest and head. I slump into the bed. That’s it. I’m too emotionally tapped. Completely silent, head in my hands. Every deep breath brings more pain to my chest. It’s all just been too much. The anxiety feels like I am being washed out to sea and no matter how hard I swim back the undertow keeps pulling me further from the shoreline. It took me the next several hours to regain composure and get all my things packed up. I had a miserable few days of traveling ahead of me.
One last sleepless night in the village of Liming and I was loading my backpack yet again on a bus bound for Lijiang. Except for this time it would take me to the airport and eventually out of China. I had multiple layovers and delays in my 30-hour journey back to my home of Boulder, Colorado including sleeping on the floor in both Chengdu airport and LAX waiting for bag check to open.
I arrived at Denver International airport and headed straight for a walk-in clinic. Their diagnosis was a dislocated rib, two cracked ribs, a concussion, and a severe laceration of my head. They put my rib back in place and took my stitches out, leaving me with just my story and a wild scar as proof of my misadventures in Yunnan Province.
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