Columnist gets injured leading a ‘safe’ activity
Lions! Tigers! ... and bears! Oh, my!
One of my favorite vacation destinations is Big Bend National Park down in west Texas in proximity to the U.S./ Mexican border.
It’s a place where I can strap on my backpack and do all-day hikes into the backcountry. It’s a wild and woolly place, which fits my needs to a “T.”
But, wait! Did I mention that it is wild? This one national park is larger than the whole entirety of the state of Rhode Island and, as such, is populated with all kinds of interesting and fascinating creatures.
Again: That suits me just fine. Of particular mention is the regularity with which I find the footprints of mountain lions and black bears on those backcountry hiking trails. Walking around in the haunts of creatures such as lions and bears is a source of no end of fascination for me.
But, then again, there is the safety issue. I did always harbor a tiny bit of apprehension about what might befall me if I was back in there four miles from my vehicle when I twisted an ankle, or some such.
Since I do my backcountry hikes as a solo adventure, I gave some thought to how I would extract myself from such a remote locale with no cellphone service. Would I be limping back to my vehicle with hunger-possessed lions and bears circling my line of travel?
Long story short, nothing anything close to that actuality did ever happen to me down there in that national park wonderland. Whew!
However, just a few weeks ago I was leading a bird watching field trip for senior citizens on a well-maintained hiking trail over on the far west side of our fair city. I jumped across a small, roadside ditch and then had the misfortune to land wrong on my foot.
The pain instantly alerted me to the fact that I had done something stupid. A 66-year-old person (me!) shouldn’t be jumping things like a 20-year-old person (you?) would do. (Now you tell me!)
This was followed up with multiple visits to doctors and surgeons and appointments for X-rays and MRI procedures. It all culminated with me being laid out prone on a hospital operating table so that my torn Achilles tendon might be stitched back together.
All of my previous nightmares about being chewed upon by mountain lions and black bears were all just an exaggerated fear.
That stuff never did come to fruition.
Instead, I am out on the edge of this major metropolitan area with a few of my friends and end up doing some major damage to my extremity as I am doing something as harmless as bird watching. Go figure!
Neil Garrison was the longtime naturalist at a central Oklahoma nature center.