OURAY – After falling over 10 feet onto a ledge at the Ouray Ice Park last week, which caused two broken ribs and two bilateral fractures of his outer vertebrae, 72-year-old Charlie Winger is at home in Montrose recovering and hopes to be back out climbing as soon as possible.

“I am doing as well as to be expected,” Winger said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “Sitting is miserable but I am able to get around with a walker. Other than that, I spend most of my time resting horizontally.”

Winger, who has over 25 years of climbing experience, was lead climbing a route with a group of friends in the south end of the Ouray Ice Park on Wednesday, Dec. 16. He placed an ice screw about shoulder high while standing on a ledge about 40 feet from the bottom of the box canyon and began to climb above that screw. While he was making a move the one tool he had in the ice slipped and he fell approximately 10 feet onto the ledge he was previously standing on.

“If I hadn’t hit the ledge, it would have been a non-event,” Winger said. “I was reluctant to put two tools in the ice at the same level but ultimately it was my fault for not having the other tool in as well. It’s one of those things that happens when you get as many days climbing as I do. It’s going to happen.”

Winger said he has been on that particular route about 10 times before and spent upwards of 30-40 days at the ice park last season.

Immediately after the fall, Winger said he tried to walk out but couldn’t stand up. One of his climbing buddies immediately called emergency dispatch and both the Ouray County EMS and Ouray Mountain Rescue were dispatched to the park.

Mike MacLeod, who was on the OMR initial response team, said there were already a number of OMR members already climbing at the park and were able to respond to the victim about 15 minutes after the call went out.

“The patient was treated on-scene by OMRT EMTs, packaged, and extricated from the bottom of the gorge using a vertical raise rigging technique directly up the…wall to the Box Canyon parking lot where he was transferred to the care of an awaiting OCEMS ambulance,” MacLeod said. “He was then transported to Montrose Memorial Hospital by OCEMS.”

MacLeod said over a dozen OMR personnel participated in the rescue and that it took the team approximately one hour to get Winger into the ambulance from the time the emergency call took place. MacLeod said Winger was conscious and stable throughout the rescue effort and called Winger a “pretty tough, high-spirited gentleman, considering the circumstances.”

MacLeod said that less than a week before the accident, OMR had conducted a rescue exercise of almost the same nature a couple hundred meters from where Winger fell. “In fact, part of the training was a discussion on how to handle the extrication of an injured person in the location where the patient was injured,” he said. “We had literally mapped out how to handle this situation just five days before it happened. No doubt that our pre-planning played a significant role in the quick extrication time.”

Winger agreed that the rescue effort couldn’t have been better. Winger has already made a donation to OMR and that the organization forteenerWorld.com has made a $500 contribution to OMR in Winger’s name.

“I can’t say enough for those guys,” Winger said of his rescuers. “They are all volunteers and they were so professional. They made the day for me and kept me from being further injured.”

Winger said his doctors believe he will be able to do some lightweight walking and hiking in about six weeks of recovery.

“By then I should be mobile again and shouldn’t have to use the walker,” he said. “In about eight weeks, hopefully I will get back to doing what I like to do, which is climbing.