Climber's camera captures his horrifying 60-foot free-fall down rock face in Flatirons
A man who survived a harrowing ordeal, falling 60 feet while climbing the Flatirons in Boulder, Colorado, has finally left rehabilitation.
Kyle Walker, 26, was making his way up the range's second flatiron April 16 -- without ropes -- when he fell. His GoPro camera, which was strapped to his chest at the time, captured the terrifying incident.
The video, which is a little less than six minutes long and was posted on YouTube, begins with Walker's hands desperately holding onto rocks as he tries to maintain his grip.
"Oh, what have you done?" he can be heard saying to himself.
On that day, he was alone and free-climbing -- meaning climbing without ropes. He said he'd tackled the Flatirons hundreds of times.
But, at the video's 48-second mark, he appears to lose his grip. He told the Boulder Daily Camera that his foot had actually slipped.
"In the middle of my final move I realize I’m tiring quickly and I have one chance to explode over the rock to a resting place," Walker told the Boulder Daily Camera. "Instead my feet slipped on the lichen-covered section of the wall and I was in free fall before I knew what had happened."
The camera captured the free-fall down the rock's face. After the fall, almost five minutes of video showed very little but captured Walker's ragged breathing as he went in and out of consciousness on the ground.
He was found by a hiker about an hour later and was taken by rescuers to a hospital. There, he learned that he'd broken his wrists, eight ribs as well as his pelvis. He also punctured a lung in the fall, according to the newspaper.
He was released from Boulder Community Health’s Foothills Hospital this week.
