A moment’s inattention and one misstep in a remote part of Yellowstone National Park left an experienced wildlife photographer in a crisis without working phone service or medical help.
Luckily, she had someone else with her.
Marcela Herdova was on a short hike with a friend on Sunday, to get a better look at some wolves, when she broke her right leg.
“I managed to step with my right leg into basically a snow-covered hole. The person I was with, he said, ‘I heard a snap.’ And I said, ‘I didn’t hear anything,’” Herdova told Cowboy State Daily.
Avid Wyoming backcountry hunter and guide Cade Cole, who frequently ventures out alone, said that Herdova serves as a “spooky” reminder of just how dangerous the wild can be.
The annals of wilderness adventure are filled with tales of experienced people who ended up dead because “they just had little, tiny accident,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
Lucky She Wasn’t Alone
Herdova said she didn’t realize at first how serious her injury was.
But when she pulled her leg out of the hole and tried putting weight on her leg, it became apparent there was no way she was walking back to the parking lot where they’d started, about a mile and a half away.
She’d hoped that she’d perhaps only strained her knee or pulled a ligament.
As a medical examination would later reveal, she suffered a “plateau fracture” to her tibia, she said.
They were in an open area of “little, gentle hills” in the Specimen Ridge area, and out of cell phone service, she said.
The man who was with her declined to be named or interviewed.
Marcela said he hiked to some timber and retrieved a branch for her to use as a crutch. That enabled her to make the excruciating three-hour trek back to the parking lot.
The hike in had taken them about 15 minutes, Herdova said.
“At first, I tried using the branch as a cane, but that didn’t work,” she said.
With her companion’s gloves atop the stick for padding, she was able to “put it against my sternum, which still hurts,” hobble along, putting most of her weight on the branch.
“I could go about three steps at a time,” she said.
She’s not sure what would have happened if she’d been alone.
“I would have, I don’t know, tried to drag myself out on my elbows? I don’t know,” she said.
Carried Out The Rest Of The Way
Herdova said her ordeal highlights the importance of “never going in alone,” particularly during the winter.
The relatively mild weather helped, she said.
“I was also lucky it wasn’t bad weather, sunny but still cold. So, I still had to keep going to avoid suffering from exposure,” she said.
When venturing out, it’s also important to let others know where you’re going and when you expect to return, she added.
And in her case, that paid off.
After enough time had passed, the people they’d left behind in the parking lot figured something had gone wrong and went looking for Herdova and her companion.
“They came and found us, and I was carried out about the last half-mile,” she said.
As an interesting aside, she said she saw a “fresh grizzly track” in the snow near the parking lot.
Doctors have told her that her injury might require surgery and could take at least a month to heal.
Stark Reminder
Herdova said her experience is a stark reminder that Wyoming’s wild beauty comes with an edge of danger.
“Safety is constantly on my mind when I’m outdoors. This was just a great reminder of how easily something bad can happen,” she said.
The silver lining was how eagerly others stepped up to help her.
“The good stuff about this bad stuff is, you get to see the character of people who come to Yellowstone. It was incredible how many people came to help and how accommodating that they were,” she said.
Cole said a sense of caution is a must in the wilderness.
He’s no stranger to taking things to the extreme.
He recently tested his ability to survive in the woods, taking only a recurve bow, two horses and a mule on a several-day solo hunt near Dubois. He had no food, water or matches and lived off the land for days before bagging a bull elk.
Backcountry expertise can have a double edge when it comes to safety, he said.
“For me, it’s weird. The more time you spend out there, the more likely it is for you to get hurt,” he said.
More time outside increases the odds of something going wrong, of course. But the other factor is the “complacency” experienced people can fall prey to, Cole said.
You build up some complacency. You tell yourself, ‘I’ve been out here a million times,’” he said.
He’s glad that Herdova’s story had a happy ending, and said he completely understands how accidents like hers can happen, even to seasoned outdoorspeople.
“Maybe they were thinking about bears or were thinking about weather, or ‘where I’m going to camp?’” When you’re thinking about those things, you’re not thinking about a hole in the ground, or a sharp tree stump that you could stumble into,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
