The friends of a Squamish resident in critical condition are fighting to bring him home after he survived a 40-metre plunge while ice climbing in Colorado.
Vratislav “Vrato” Durech and his wife went on an ice climbing trip to the U.S. state of Colorado, where he plummeted around 130 feet to the ground in January.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO 1130 NEWSRADIO VANCOUVER LIVE!Durech, who lived in Jasper, Alberta, before moving to B.C., survived but suffered multiple facial fractures, a shattered femur, a broken heel, and a fractured shoulder. According to a GoFundMe page, he has no severe traumatic brain injury, and at this time, his vital signs are stable.
Durech is in the intensive care unit across the border in a Grand Junction hospital as of Jan. 30. He won’t be able to walk for at least a year and a half and may not speak for months due to facial surgeries.
His close friend from Jasper, Pierre Carret, tells 660 NewsRadio (1130 NewsRadio’s sister station in Calgary) the immediate priority is raising roughly $50,000 for an emergency medical flight back to Canada.
Carret, who visited him briefly, explains the shock of the initial call.
“When I heard that I’m going to deal with somebody that’s dying, I couldn’t believe it,” he said.
“Even when I saw him, even when he was like all impacted and his eyes were swelling so hard — as big as his neck — and I saw all it was, I was like, ‘How did you survive that shit?’ It was insane.”
Carret says Durech’s travel insurance won’t cover the cost because ice climbing is deemed an extreme sport. The Canadian Automobile Association says standard travel insurance packages don’t cover extreme sports, “adventure activities,” or a pre-existing activity.
But the worst part, he says, is the cost of care in the United States.
“The bills in the States are crazy,” he said.
“They are going to be almost a million U.S. dollars for all the work they are doing right now.”
He adds it was a miracle his friend survived because the fall should have been fatal. While it’s not clear how Durech survived, Carret believes the rope got caught, not at the anchor but at a knot at the end, and absorbed most of the shock.
Regardless of how he managed to make it out on top, Carret says the emotional toll of Durech’s battles through surgeries and complications in the ICU has been intense.
“It has been a roller coaster trying to deal with every situation, and once you deal with one situation, of course, it has an impact on the next situation,” he said.
However, Carret says the bright side is the amount of community support they have received.
“He’s a brother to me, and all the people around are so supportive, people are working on, ‘How can we raise more money,’ fundraising — the full community is involved in it,” he said.
Not only are friends fundraising to cover the emergency air ambulance to bring him back to Canada, but they are also working to cover the costly medical procedures abroad and the loss of income due to the accident.
Around $88,000 has been raised as of Sunday.