Ice Climber Fractures Pelvis and Back After Big Fall

Rick Dvorak fell about 10 metres from near the top of Broken Hearts WI5/6 in Cody, Wyoming. Dvorak, from Billings, broke several broke several bones and offered a big thank you to the first responders and other climbers who helped get him to safety on Saturday.

Dvorak said he fractured his pelvis, sacrum and L1 vertebra while also breaking a rib. He said no surgeries were needed and that he should make a full recovery within three months.

Members of the Park and Big Horn County Search and Rescue teams, Cody Regional Health’s Wilderness Medical Team and other ice climbers in the area and Dvorak’s friends assisted with the rescue.

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Had a Four day weekend in Wyoming’s Ice Climbing Mecca, after a decade long respite from the sport, on borrowed gear and at the invite of friends and family. As the least experienced and undoubtedly slowest/most cautious amongst these men, I never heard a single thing but encouragement and stoke to be on the same trip experiencing the same moderates, even as those who could (and have) climbed larger, more committing, and inevitably more rewarding for them, climbs. After witnessing first hand the most brutal lead fall, and subsequent injury I’d ever seen, befall one of these men, whose constant encouragement and expressed happiness and excitement for me to be sharing a rope with him on ice, I realized, through the rescue, and following days’ activities, the reason one goes into adventures, is somewhat less important than with whom they go on adventures. Pic 1: Rick topping out Sendero Iluminoso. 2: Josh leading Sendero, calm and clean. 3: descents in the dark 4/4 days 4: Rick on P3 Broken Hearts. 5: looking up at Kyle leading P1 of Stringer. 6:Caleb dry tooling at an area near Deer Creek, after our hollow experience and time crunch on Too Cold to Fire

A post shared by Kristian Nickol (@knclimbs) on Feb 11, 2020 at 8:02pm PST

“There were a lot of faces I did not recognize putting efforts forth on my behalf. To faces I knew and those I did not, I thank you with all my heart for helping me in my helpless state,” Dvorak wrote in a comment on the Park County Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page.

“Even though I spent much of the lower evacuation in a severely dazed state, much of my real emotion was feeling overwhelmed by the drive humans have to give so much to join in a massive collective effort to help somebody out who they may not even know out of a life-threatening environment to safety.”

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Those who tread this tower before us are/were truly hard men, but we left this beauty a little safer than when we found it and that's still not saying much. Interestingly enough, one of the scariest pitches I've ever climbed is also likely the shortest. (@cubsct embracing the dark side)

A post shared by Rick Dvorak (@rjdvorak67) on Jan 12, 2020 at 8:21am PST