Surviving is sometimes the easy part

Adventure produces this survival issue each year and it has become one of the most popular issues. I think it’s because it is a mixture of “no one can help looking at a car accident” and “reading about the ability for the human spirit to survive”. This issue has taken on a real personal note for us all here at Adventure, because two of the lead stories are friends and colleges; Derek Cheng; you would have read his climbing stories every issue for the last few years. We were devastated when we heard about his fall; I won’t go into details just read the story but what is not in the feature is that while Derek was in hospital with a broken everything, he still managed to get this story in on time!

Secondly, the lovely Annabel Anderson, possibly the most under-sung sports women in New Zealand. She is a machine; you can not describe her in any other way, she is also lovely, caring and funny but she is still a machine and she took a fall skiing last year that would have killed most people, it’s a terrifying account about what can happen so quickly and to anyone.

A big aspect of this issue is that surviving is one thing, but it’s what comes after the first struggle to survive; the years, sometime whole lifetimes of rehabilitation, dealing with physical and mental issue of simply surviving, that we often fail to see. Mark Inglis interview gives a rare insight into what can lay ahead for those that survive and the attitude with which you have to approach it.

As I am writing this a good friend lays in hospital. Surfing small waves with his two young boys at Omaha he fell and broke both his back and his neck. He survived by good luck and sheer will power. But now he and his family have the long road of rehabilitation ahead and we want them to know our thoughts are with them on that uphill climb.

This issue is dedicated to him and his family…