By Rausee Johnson
Freezing, exhausted, and blinded by snow I lay here screaming for help hoping someone will find me. It was 5:22am. when I started my journey up the tallest mountain on Earth, Mount Everest. It's always been a dream of mine to climb this mountain but I never gotten the chance… Until now.
I was about 20 minutes away from the base when it started to snow. I continued to hike, but the snow fell harder and harder every minute. I was pushing through, I couldn’t see the trail anymore and everything was just white, I couldn’t see further than about a foot in front of me. I was making random turns and just trying to stay on trail. After about an three hours of a horrible blizzard it started to slow down. I didn’t know where I was or if I was still on the trail so I just keep climbing. My body was tired and I couldn’t go any further. I stopped and took a rest, put some more layers of warm clothes on, and ate some food. I ended up falling asleep for a couple hours. After my body was rehydrated and had more energy I continued on my journey. It was all uphill at this point. I didn’t know how far I had gone or how much further I had to go. The snow kept coming on and off, it was below zero and I couldn’t feel any part of my body anymore. The worst blizzard of them all had occurred. I couldn’t see anything, my heart started beating at 100 miles per hour. I was hitting trees, kicking rocks, and tripping over my own feet. All the sudden the hill went from being uphill to going downhill. I kicked a rock and started to stumble down. I couldn't get my feet under me. I felt a screaming pain shoot up my leg, I could hear the bone snapping and it felt like it echoed in my brain for minutes. My eyes started to water and I started to sweat, which is weird because it was below zero. I honestly thought my leg was just going to pop off because I was so cold and it hurt so bad. The pain continued to get worse and worse.
I lay here in the snow just hoping someone will come find me. My food supply was slowly dwindling down. I start to lose all hope that I will survive. Minutes went by, which turned to hours, which transformed into days…. and before I could blink my eyes it had been three, cold long days of laying here screaming for help.I had frostbite on my ears, fingers, toes, and nose, I could hardly even move anymore. All my hope was gone, I was going to die here on the middle of the mountain. My lips were dry and cracking, my whole body was froze, I couldn’t move anything. My eyes rolled back in my head.
My eyes slowly opened, I yelled in pain. My leg was aching and my heart was racing. I’m nearly dead, but fighting for every last minute I have.
The random man called flight for life. They came immediately, I was almost dead, we rushed to the hospital. I was in so much pain on the way there, but luckily when we got to the hospital they gave me pain medicine that helped a lot."Gus.... Are you okay? I love you." yelled my wife.
My wife and two kids met me at the hospital, they were so worried about me. They had no idea where I was but when they saw me my youngest daughter, Alissa, she’s four, started crying and screaming because my face was dry and cut up. I was at the hospital for two nights and three days. I had a shattered shin bone, extremely bad frostbite, and was dehydrated. I had to have surgery on my broken leg, I will be in a cast for about a month and can’t do anything for six months. I finally got released from the hospital I made it home safely and I’m having a long, but great recovery. The day I broke my leg was one of the most memorable, yet scary days of my life. I’m so lucky to be alive today.
