A Burnaby man says he is going to buy a lottery ticket, after he fell 12 metres from a cliff and nearly drowned early Saturday in waters off Apodaca Provincial Park.
“I just remember trying not to drown and then knowing that if I didn’t find a way out I’d be dead,” Graham Cross told the Undercurrent Tuesday morning from Lions Gate Hospital where he is recovering from serious injuries.
Cross was camping on private property adjacent to Apodaca, on the north west side of the park, with some friends Friday night.
“We just had a quiet night and set up camp randomly and we were going to carry on to Apodaca the next day,” recalled Cross, groggily by telephone from his hospital bed.
The 34-year-old, who is now recovering from a brain injury, is still trying to piece together what happened after he went to sleep in his tent, which was placed 15 to 20 feet from the edge of a bluff in a mossy area.
“I’m thinking what I did is I just kind of got up half asleep and went to go pee or something and just fell (off a cliff),” said Cross.
The next thing he knew, Cross was fighting to keep his head above water through the excruciating pain of fractured vertebrae and a foot that was “snapped in half.” He figures he hit some rocks at the bottom of the water upon impact.
“There were waves crashing. I don’t know if a boat had gone by or if there was a tidal change, but I was fighting waves in the water, fully submerged,” said Cross. “Then I was drawn out (to the ocean) and had to scramble and climb up the cliff. I just knew I was going to die if I didn’t do it. My right lung filled with water and I very nearly drowned.”
Cross managed to crawl up onto a ledge above the water line where he laid for six hours in the middle of the night hoping that someone would hear his cries for help.
“I couldn’t move,” said Cross. “I was trying to signal boats going by, like wave them over, and I was yelling ‘help’ and stuff.”
His friends were asleep at the top of the bluff and oblivious to the fact Cross was missing - until around 9:30 a.m. when one of them spotted him down below and called 9-1-1.
B.C. Ambulance Service paramedics on Bowen were able to reach Cross and package him up, but getting him out of the area - located along Bowen’s central eastern shoreline - proved to be tricky. That’s when North Shore Rescue got the call, at around 10 a.m.
“They contemplated trying to get a boat in there, but moving the patient like that - it’s quite challenging in that terrain,” said North Shore Rescue team leader Mike Danks.
A NSR flight team was sent over to Bowen, and after a quick assessment from the air, said Danks, they decided to go with the longline rescue to get Cross out.
One NSR member, sent down from a Talon helicopter, helped hoist Cross up from the ground in a specialized stretcher for moving people with spinal and head injuries. Then the two flew via longline over to Crippen Park where an ambulance was waiting to take Cross onto the ferry and over to Lions Gate Hospital.
“Yeah, that was pretty cool,” said Cross of flying in the open air over Howe Sound.
He also wants to thank all the emergency officials on Bowen and North Shore Rescue for coming to his aid.
“They saved my life,” said Cross.
Cross, who works as a carpenter, now faces at least six months of rehabilitation as he recovers from his extensive injuries including a broken right foot which required surgery. He also fractured three vertebrae in the accident, and lacerated his skull and left knee while being thrashed against the cliff by waves.
While he is currently in full neck and back braces, Cross says he is thankful he isn’t paralyzed and confident about the future.
“If I can get out of that (accident), I think I should be able to make a full recovery,” he said.
Danks hailed the rescue a co-ordinated effort between B.C. Ambulance Service, the Bowen Island Fire Department, Bowen Island RCMP, North Shore Rescue and Talon Helicopters.
Saturday’s incident marked the first time in a while that North Shore Rescue has been called out to Bowen.
“It’s not super common, but we’re happy to come over and it’s a very quick response for us,” said Danks.
The last time NSR spent a considerable amount of time on Bowen, said Danks, was in 2009 when the team aided in the search for missing teenager Jodi Henrickson.
