My Matterhorn Mishap
I’ll start by saying the intention of this story is to locate a hero that entered our lives very unexpectedly. We don’t know his name, or much about him. But given the power of the internet and social media, I thought it was worth a shot to send this out in to the universe. This is also a story about fear, heroism, pain, love, and some hardcore international Rambo shit.
Let’s set the scene.
You know that roller coaster at Disney Land called Matterhorn? It’s a snowy ride with a yeti? Ok so picture that, but the real thing. We were in Zermatt, a little mountain town at the base of the Swiss Alps that spanned between Italy and Switzerland. THE Matterhorn sat in the background of everywhere you looked. It’s this crazy pointy arrow-like mountain peak shooting out of the mountain range. We were there to explore and decided last minute to ski and snowboard. We couldn’t resist the vast mountain range with 75 runs, three sections, covering two countries, with a legitimate train that ran to the top of the mountain in addition to 3 separate gondolas and a bunch of fancy europeans.
We rented (what ended up being very shitty) gear and started to explore the mountain. The size was overwhelming. The fact that I hadn’t snowboarded (or worked out for that matter) in a long time made me slightly nervous. Everything hurt. My boots didn’t fit well. My board was too long. My knees, shins, ankles and butt hurt after the first run. But the Matterhorn!! We were in fucking Switzerland skiing the best mountain in the world. It was nuts.
At around 3pm, Jay and I decided to ride all the way to the top of the mountain and ski down a nearly 5 mile run, all the way to the bottom, and call it a day. Midway down the run, I was exhausted and felt like I could barely make my turns. I was nervous about the narrow, icy run we were on, so we pulled over and took a break. We caught our breath and took this photo:
We agreed we’d meet at the gondola at the bottom if we got separated. Jay said he’d lead, and we started off again. Narrow runs are hard for me on a snowboard because you can’t make big turns, which is my style. All of a sudden, my front edge caught on the ice and I was hurled in to a cartwheel-like motion. I let out whatever noise you make when all the air is leaving your body. Jay was gone, I knew it. And I was left laying flat on the ice with no breath, unsure of what hurt. Was the wind just knocked out of me or was I hurt? As I laid flat on the ground, eyes closed, trying to regain breath, I heard from above me: “Hello? French? English? Italian?”
After a few seconds, I pushed “English” out of my mouth.
“Ah American! Ok, can we get you up? Are you alone?”
Fighting through the tears I told him, “My boyfriend. He was right in front of me. He’s down the hill.”
“Ok, let’s get you up and out of your snowboard. Can you do that? Let me help you. We’ll walk down the run a bit, and see if we can see him from another vantage point.” At this point, I still hadn’t gotten a visual on this man because my goggles had filled up with tears and I was so focused on breathing.
The man helped me get out of my snowboard, grabbed it, and slowly walked me down the run. At this point I was holding my left arm very tightly against my body. I knew something was hurt. Once we got to a little area clear from the run, he put my board down and told me to sit on it so my bum wouldn’t get cold. It was at that point I got a look at him.
He was wearing a full red, matching Tag Heuer ski suit and helmet. He had a dark brown and grey goatee/beard. It was at that point I noticed he had three kids with him. One was his son and the other two were the cousins.
We started talking to figure out best next steps. He quickly decided to call ski patrol. How did he know the number so instantly? How did he know exactly which steps to take? Did he work here?
While we waited for ski patrol, we talked. He was from South Africa and loved to ski, but had never skied in America. He had friends from SF who owned a restaurant. He made comments about taking his clients somewhere. He was clearly a well traveled, educated, super hero with a heart of gold.
I felt bad about keeping he and his kids from skiing, but I needed him. My phone was dead. I had no way of getting in touch with Jay.
The ski patrol arrived and was a slightly aggressive Italian man who started quickly speaking to me in Italian. Of course, South African Man (let’s call him SAM from now on) spoke Italian too. I had now heard him speak three languages fluently, in 15 minutes.
The aggressive Italian started tugging on my limp little chicken wing as I began to wail. SAM translated as Italian man messed with me.
“Does this hurt? Did that hurt? How much do you weigh? (As he converted pounds in to kilos)”
At this point I had been sitting in the snow for 20 minutes and the sun was setting. I couldn’t feel my feet, hands or butt.
“So he said that if that hurt when he touched your arm, taking you down in the sled is going to be really bad. It’s a steep, bumpy run. He doesn’t want to injure you more. He wants to call the helicopter and take you to the hospital in Visp.”
“No. Please. No helicopter.”
“He wants you to go to the hospital to get your arm checked out. The Swiss have very good medical care. The sled is going to be really bad. There’s no other way to get you out.”
So SAM and the Italian man called in the big guns. The fucking Swiss helicopter.
SAM and I continued to talk while we waited.
“Will the helicopter guys and doctors speak English?” I was starting to freak out that SAM and I would have to split up. He had been my saving Grace up until this point. “Yes, they’ll all speak English. This guy actually speaks English, he just doesn’t want to. He’d rather I translate.”
5 minutes later, a helicopter approached from below. They’re as loud and powerful as you’d think. Snow started going everywhere. SAM stopped ski traffic from coming down the mountain. I started to realize how real this all was. They were going to take me multiple towns away. Jay didn’t know where I was. I was in a foreign country. My phone was dead. I was in so much pain.
Three Swiss men jumped out of the helicopter, blades roaring. I started going in to shock.
All I could keep thinking about was Dad. The number of emergency situations he had been in; as the hero and as the person being rescued.
“Breath. You have to breath to stay calm” I kept repeating in my head.
“Hello! We are here to help you! Are you in pain?” Said the three jolly paramedics.
“Yes, I’m in pain” I choked out through the tears. I was fully shaking at this point. SAM was behind them continuing to ask me questions to keep me from passing out. “So tell me about your boyfriend!”
Meanwhile, the paramedics whipped out a needle. “This is going to feel like you drank a whole bottle of wine!” In the needle went, straight in to my arm. I looked away until I realized my hand felt wet. I looked back and blood was covering the snow below me. Blood was fine, as long as the morphine kicked in quickly.
I looked back at SAM now in full panic. “His name is Jay. He’s Indian.”
“Well that’s not a very Indian name!”
I laughed. The pain meds were hitting.
“He’s in a grey, blue and red jacket. We were going to meet at the gondola at the bottom.”
Then the men hoisted me up, walked me to the helicopter, strapped me in and we were off. We flew over the mountains and the town of Zermatt. I remember forcing myself to look down and around. I was getting a superb view of everything after all! People paid a lot of money to get helicopter rides like this!
We landed on top of the Visp Hospital and I got pushed inside. “So you’re skiing alone?” Asked the paramedic while we went down the elevator.
“No. My boyfriend is up there somewhere. My phone is dead. I need a charger. I need to call him.” That would be the first of many times I made that request through my drug induced haziness.
All my ski clothes had to be peeled off. I wailed as they did it. “Do you want us to cut them off?” I quieted down and suffered through the pain.
There I was. Naked in a hospital gown, laying in a brightly lit room next to another woman, hooked up to an IV. Alone, out of it, scared. This would be my first time being a patient in a hospital. The last time I laid in a hospital bed was next to my dad as he was dying. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be with Jay. How would he find me? How long would it take? We didn’t have a car, we were supposed to go back to Montreux that night. Our bags were back at the hotel. I still had my rental gear. I was an hour train ride away from him. And I was drugged.
There was a moment while I was laying there that I thought to myself “am I dreaming? Is this one of those dreams that feels so real, but I’ll wake up?” All I wanted to do was wake up.
Unbeknownst to me, SAM had skied down the mountain and got to the gondola to find the only brown man in site. “Are you Jay?” He said in his South African accent.
Jay knew then, something was wrong. It had been 30 minutes since we had split up.
“Your girlfriend has been taken off in a helicopter. She had a fall and is going to the hospital in Visp. You’ll need to take this Gondola down to the bottom and then catch the train. I’ll take the Gondola with you.”
As they rode the Gondola down, the only information he gave Jay was, “She was going in to shock right before I left her.”
Jay remembers him being “really attractive”
At this point, Jay needed to spring in to action. He had a bunch of things in between SAM’s news and finding me.
First he stoped at the rental shop to drop his gear off. He explained to them that his girlfriend was in the hospital and he didn’t have my gear. They told him not to worry about it and bring it back once he had it.
Then he booked it to our hotel to grab our bags. He asked the hotel for the address and phone number of the Visp Hospital. It was at that point he called the hospital to see if I was there. Yes, I had just gotten there 10 minutes ago, but he couldn’t talk to me for TWO HOURS. “Please tell her I’m on my way. Her boyfriend Jay is on his way.”
They did not tell me.
With bags in tow, Jay headed to the train station to take it down to Visp, what should have been about an hour long trip. However, what he came upon was not how we had seen it the day before. The station was packed, people everywhere, frantically scurrying around. Police were holding people back and he learned that there had been an avalanche further down the mountain that had covered up the train tracks, stopping all train service in to and out of Zermatt. People were freaking out. Trying to figure out what he was supposed to do, he heard an American family talking. “I hear there’s buses across town that are taking people down the mountain.”
Jay ran to the other side of town to find an even more frantic situation. “It was like War of the Worlds. People holding money in the air, shouting in multiple languages. Every man for themselves.”
He noticed a police officer who seemed to be extra helpful. “Excuse me, English?” He nodded. “My girlfriend has been air lifted to Visp Hospital and I need to get to her soon. Can you please help me?”
The officer took Jay over to a sprinter van and had a conversation in German with the driver. The driver nodded and the police officer instructed Jay to give the man 11 francs. Putting all his trust in these men, Jay hopped in and was joined by a wealthy German family who had clearly bribed the driver to take them down the mountain.
Down a packed one lane road they drove, at one point pulling over to get in a screaming match with another truck trying to come up the road. Jay understood nothing that was being said.
He was then dropped at the closest functioning train station, to catch the train to Visp.
Meanwhile back at the hospital, I had been taken in for painful X-rays and visited by the woman from the finance office to get my information. “Do you have a contact we can put down?” “I need to call my boyfriend. I need an iPhone charger.” It was at this point that she tipped me off to the fact that maybe they knew something I didn’t. “I think someone’s coming for you. I think someone called.” “Did someone call? Can you check?” “Oh, I don’t know. But we need $1000 deposit. It will be more if you stay the night.”
Had Jay called? Did he know I was there? Was he coming?
A nurse came in to take me for CT scans. As we left, she asked in very broken English “are you here alone?” “No. My boyfriend is on the mountain. My phone is dead. I need a charger.” She pulled out her iPhone “like this?” “YES LIKE THAT.” The nice nurse grabbed her charger and explained that she would be back to grab it in 45 minutes. We plugged it in and the little vibrate indicating that it was being charged was the best sound I had heard in a long time.
Text messages started coming in from the group chat we had started earlier in the day with Robin and Ayesha. “Grace was in an accident. She’s at the hospital. I’m on my way to get her. The trains are fucked up. It’s taking a long time. Mom knows what happened and can go to her.” I started to cry. They knew where I was. Jay was coming.
I called Jay and he told me he was an hour out. “I’ve got a crazy story for you.”
In typical Jay fashion, he was calm and sweet. I had no idea what he had been going through, but he laughed about his “crazy story”. I told him how scared I was. He was coming and that’s all that mattered.
The doctor came in and explained that I had fractured my radius head. I’d need to be in a sling for 10 days. As the nurse came in to get me dressed and in to the sling, Jay walked through the doors. It was the image I had been imagining since I got there. The doors opening and him behind them. I was very out of it. Hadn’t eaten all day. I was so thirsty because they wouldn’t let me drink water in case I needed surgery. Jay and the nurse got me dressed and we walked out of the hospital at 7:30pm, 4 hours after arriving.
Jay knew the way back to the train station since he had walked there after finding directions from a hotel bar when he had arrived in the dark.
“How did you know where to find me?”
“A super attractive Australian guy found me!”
“He’s from South Africa. I can’t believe he found you.”
We picked up some halal and boarded the train back to Montreux.
Beyond Jay being the cutest, most wonderful, thoughtful, problem solving hero in this scenario, SAM really killed it.
We so badly want to thank him for sticking around and making both of us feel safe and taken care of. He didn’t have to. He didn’t have to spend 2 hours of his ski day taking care of two American strangers. So, if you know a South African who was skiing in Switzerland on 12/29/2018, please connect us to him.
