Back in '09 on an elk hunt I broke my leg crossing a creek, snapped my bone completely but didn't break the skin, my foot could touch my knee and did, in denial I grabbed my foot and tried putting it back but it just fell over again. The hunter I was guiding was in front and didn't see it, he came back asking what I was doing laying on the bank with my leg in the water, I had left it in to keep the swelling down. I picked my leg up and he saw my foot dangling and freaked, I told him I was going to pass out and to stay calm, then I did... woke up and it was real.
Walter was panicked, it had been raining hard all day, we had been out all day hunting and an hour of light left in canyon, no way to make a fire easily, no phone service for miles. I told him to go and get my brother in camp for help knowing it would be after dark before they could get back.
I'm laying there with my leg in the creek, soaked from the day's rain and falling in the creek. My body would start shaking and I'd try to calm it by deep breathing, cold or shock or both I don't know. After about an hour the shaking wore down, I started feeling warm, the leg stopped hurting, all my normal pains from being 52 years old and working construction went away. Soon I felt better than I've felt since I could remember. I knew what was happening and thought of that guy who left his family in the car after days of stuck in snow, they found him dead, he had taken his coat off, I knew he thought he was warm and feeling good.
When I finally got to the hospital the leg was really bad but their first concern was my core temperature was extremely low, the leg could wait for the morning.
When I die I want to die of hypothermia, it truly was the best I felt physically, at least since being an adult.
Kent
