Another Adventure I’ve Experienced and can Write about with Confidence

We hunted elk for four days out of the seven. On the last day in the last hour, I took a tumble toward the bottom of the hill.

We were walking on a narrow path on the side of an old logger road that had been covered with trees that had fallen onto it. We were in a very promising spot as we had heard elk in that area.

We were headed back to the truck to sit in another spot on the embankment of this old logger road. I saw the hole as I stepped into it with my left foot. I stumbled, tried to catch my balance with my right leg and it twisted I cried out in pain because the twisting came at my already injured knee area.

I was so upset to have once again redamage my knee, but then I fell and began a roll to the drop off of the embankment. Now this embankment was a good 30 yards down. It would have hurt a bunch if I had kepting rolling. I rolled three times and put out my left hand and made myself stop. Which surprised me.

Still angry with myself, I moved to make an effort to rise. My husband yelled, “Jean! Don’t move!”

Ahhhh, okay.

I froze as I trust my husband with my life. He was frantically mumbling to himself. He had a rifle on his shoulder but when he reached for my hand, his rifle slipped off. He said, “I’ve got to lay down the gun. Hang on!”

Poor guy. He was much more upset than me. I was just plain furious. This was no way to end our elk hunt. My knee hurt again. We wouldn’t get to stay on that road to wait and see if we could get a peek at a bull elk. Furious, I tell ya!

The whole week of hunting I was so careful with my knee, where I stepped, making sure I didn’t walk on too uneven of ground. When I saw that hole, I couldn’t stop myself from stepping into it. It was too late.

Now, my husband’s hand reached for mine. Our fingers wiggled and strained to connect. It was tricky because I had to not move too much or I might continue to fall. I squirmed to better face him while I dug my boots into the dirt.

Our hands gripped together. He pulled. I worked my left boot digging in.

We made it.

I was safe on the ground.

Then I said, “Did you see that hole? I stepped into a hole!”

Jim helped me as I used a stick for a cane and we got back down that logger road path.

I don’t know why my left hand held me like it did. It doesn’t seem like it should have. The fingerless cotton glove I was wearing on that hand had flown off, so that was weird. Especially because I had pulled the upper part of the very feminine fingerless glove halfway up my arm and under my shirt sleeve and coat.

I do believe my guardian angel held me back from going over to the ground 30 yards below. There could have been fallen trees on the way down as we’d had 60 mile an hour gusts two weeks before that was still causing trees to fall. We know that because as we were leaving, another tree crashed to the ground behind us.

If I had kept falling, I could have landed on a tree and broken my bones.

But. I didn’t. And thank the Lord for that.

I did not tear my meniscus again. Thank You, Lord! Just strained it. My neck experienced shooting pains but when we arrived home, I kept heated towels on my neck to calm it.

This all happened on Friday. Yes, my knee has been set back a bit in the healing process but that’s all the injuries I have from the elk hunt fall.