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Editor's note: The above video may be too graphic for some readers. Viewer discretion is advised.MOAB — A well-known rock climber and BASE jumper had a brush with disaster outside of Moab — and captures the painful aftermath on video.
The video, now on YouTube, is graphic. Ammon McNeely assesses his injury with an eerie calm as he sits on a rock ledge high above the Colorado River. His bloody ankle is snapped and dangling from a compound fracture, and a self-applied tourniquet is the only thing keeping him from bleeding out.
Fellow BASE jumper and friend Steph Davis told KSL she's not surprised by his calm demeanor.
"Ammon is a really tough guy so that was my first thought (after watching the video)," Davis said.
The Grand County Sheriff's office helped rescue McNeely after the accident on Friday, saying his chute didn't fully deploy after a jump that sent McNeely spiraling into the sandstone wall. Davis has been following the recovery.
"He's still alive," Davis said. "He's in one piece, which is great."
Moab is a mecca for the extreme sport, Davis said, and no one gets into BASE jumping without first being a good skydiver. Even then, Davis and her business associates at Moab B.A.S.E. Adventures like to make sure the people just starting out ease into it with jumps from a bridge in Idaho.
It's really a three dimensional environment and anyone that goes outdoors in that environment is exposed to that level of risk.
–Steph Davis
Davis says hers was the first business in the U.S. to receive a commercial license for BASE jump guiding. She believes fears that the sport is overly dangerous are overblown — especially when it comes to jumping around Moab.
Davis admits that for better or worse, there's risk any time you take a jump, climb a pitch or venture into the back country.
"We've had some terrible tragedies with trail runners slipping off edges with ice," Davis said. "We've had people innocently tent camping near (edges) and walking out in the night and falling. It's really a three dimensional environment and anyone that goes outdoors in that environment is exposed to that level of risk."
As for McNeely, rescuers were able to remove him from the cliff ledge and get him to a medical helicopter. In a recent Facebook post, he said that doctors were able to save his foot but he still faces a severe risk of infection.
