Hiker Impaled on Trekking Pole Near Granite Peak Summit
On July 20, 32-year-old wound nurse David Cifaldi suffered a severe impalement injury while hiking up Granite Peak, Montana’s tallest mountain. After slipping on a rock about seven hours into the ascent, Cifaldi discovered a trekking pole had pierced his left lateral muscle beneath his armpit and exited through his back. Despite the pole remaining embedded from an elevation of roughly 12,800 feet down the trail, he initially experienced no pain or bleeding and could still take deep breaths.
The Ascent and Immediate Response
Cifaldi and his friends, Jesse Ross and Brad Reich, had begun their climb at 2 a.m. with intentions to camp overnight at Froze-to-Death Plateau before pushing for the summit. Reaching the plateau by sunrise under clear mid-60s weather, the group was making steady progress until Cifaldi lost his footing. While one companion used a GPS phone to transmit an SOS to search and rescue, the other photographed the wound to help Cifaldi assess that his chest and lungs were not compromised.
Descent and Hospital Transfer
Opting to forgo an expensive helicopter extraction, Cifaldi walked around to ensure he was not lightheaded and elected to hike down with search and rescue on standby. Over the course of approximately six hours, the trio traversed boulder fields and snow patches across a 10-mile trek to the Mystic Lake trailhead, supported by morale-boosting jokes and emergency monitoring from his friends. By 3:30 p.m., he was placed in an ambulance and taken to a nearby hospital where a nurse practitioner declined to remove the implement, prompting his friends to drive him to St. Vincent Regional Hospital in Billings.
Surgical Removal and Recovery
Upon arriving at his home hospital, medical staff ran blood tests and X-rays before inducing conscious sedation to extract the trekking pole while simultaneously inserting a drainage tube. Although doctors ordered a week of rest following the procedure, Cifaldi reflected on the narrow margin of safety—noting that a penetration just three centimeters deeper would have been fatal—and credited having emergency communication tools with saving his life, expressing a strong desire to return and successfully reach the summit next year.
