On Sunday, October 26, 2025, I went climbing with my close friends Alex and Chris at Pilot Mountain State Park. We decided to warm up on a relatively new and popular moderate route, and Alex volunteered to climb first. He climbed confidently through the first sixty percent of the route, to a ledge below a small roof with a bolt placement right above the lip of the roof. After clipping the rope into the bolt, he made a move up and to the left of the roof and then placed his left foot on what appeared to be a large and solid foothold just to the left of the bolt, to navigate back above the roof. When he began to step up onto this foot, the foothold failed suddenly and catastrophically, with a textbook-sized piece of rock detaching, and Alex fell about six feet onto the ledge below, hitting both heels directly on the ledge. Because he had been standing onto his left foot, he had his left hip towards the wall when he fell so his left foot and heel took more force than the right, but both feet hit the ledge with all of Alex's weight.

Once we got Alex down to the ground, it became clear that he was not going to walk out from the base of the cliff, though the full extent and severity of his injuries were not yet clear. Luckily, there were several other climbers at Pilot that day, and a team quickly assembled to mount a rescue effort. After about 90 or so minutes, we had gotten Alex back up to the parking lot. Alex was able to get evaluated early the next day, Monday the 27th, and got the results by that evening. He had fractured both of his heels, the left one being worse but both being significant injuries. After multiple rounds of imaging and a night spent in the hospital, it was determined that surgery in both heels is going to give Alex the best chance at recovery.

So, Alex has a surgical consultation scheduled for next Wednesday, November 5th, and the surgery will be just the beginning of the recovery process. Post-surgery, Alex's heels will be unable to bear weight for approximately 8 weeks. He'll continue to be essentially immobile during this phase. He'll then have to regain strength in his legs, relearn to walk, and work to recover through likely four to six months of physical therapy. This means that Alex's life won't be the same for many, many months, and he isn't the only one affected. Alex has a wonderful wife and three amazing children who have been and will continue to be directly impacted by the loss of Alex's mobility. Because of the timing of a recent job change and the Labor Day holiday, Alex is currently without health insurance until November 1st, so all of the medical costs so far have been out-of-pocket.

Alex is my climbing partner and one of my closest friends, and he is also genuinely one of the best people that I know. He is an excellent husband, father, brother, and friend. As the the extent of his injuries became clear, one of the first considerations that he mentioned to me was this: "I'm just bummed, I won't get to go trick-or-treating with my kids this year", which brought me to tears. More generally, he is as or more concerned with the additional workload on his wife Holly as he is with his own recovery.

This fundraiser is intended to help cover out-of-pocket medical expenses, as well as to support his family with the additional costs that will arise during his recovery and from his greatly reduced ability. Any contribution is deeply appreciated and will help ease the financial strain as Alex begins the healing process.