A coveted pair Japanese fishing gloves Martinka Wawrzyniak almost died on a trip to the Catskill Mountains to climb a frozen waterfall.
The Brooklyn resident was waiting her turn on a minuscule shelf at Stoney Clove Notch when she dropped her new specially insulated Showa gloves.
“I was so sad to see it fall off the cliff, so I reached out to save it and it fell off the whole cliff,” Wawrzyniak told the Post. “It was pretty dramatic as I did a lot of 360-degree flips in the air, turned upside down, hit different parts of my body and tried to stop myself, but everything was covered in ice. I did.”
Wawrzyniak The woman, who is in her 40s, fell into a tree and held on for about 30 minutes before being rescued by fellow hikers. She was shocked to learn later that she had fractured the talus in her ankle, the fibula in her lower leg, and the calcaneus, also known as the heel bone.
What followed was a two-hour surgery at NYU Langone Health to reconstruct his left leg, weeks of learning how to walk again, and months of physical therapy to get stronger than ever.
Wawrzyniak just Ice climbing for about a month Although she had been rock climbing for about five years before her accident in February 2022.
She is also a book editor, mixed media artist, and now a “lifelong tree hugger.”
Wawrzyniak estimated she fell about 200 feet into the tree, which was 50 to 70 feet from Route 214.
“There was a lot of blood everywhere, but my hand just hit the tree because I didn't have gloves on and I hit the tree,” Wawrzyniak said. “I felt so dizzy that I thought I might actually pass out if I didn't hold on to the tree.”
After being helped to the ground, Wawrzyniak tried to make the most of the rest of the day. She thought she had simply sprained her ankle and was using a hiking pole as a crutch.
A fateful trip to emergency care took her to New York University Langone. 4 screws placed in her ankle joint It connects the bones together so they can heal. She loves to move, so she did ab floor exercises right after her surgery.
“I went for a walk in the park on crutches, spinning around until my arm almost fell off,” Wawrzyniak said. “I'm going to hang up my board. I'm going to do some pull-ups.”
Gradually, she figured out how to walk again, albeit like a “zombie”. By her birthday in May, she was able to. Walk slowly across the beach with friends. By September she had started bouldering.
Despite all this progress, a year after her fall, she still had a limp and her figure was cramped. She was told that people with talus injuries could be left with a permanent limp.
“I said, 'Oh, that's not good enough.' I'm not going to drag my feet. So what can we do about this? Because we need to not drag our feet anymore,” Wawrzyniak said. I reminisced. “'I need to climb, I need to run, I need to do all these things because my whole body hurts.'”
She was examined by Dr. Lauren E. Borowski, a sports medicine specialist at New York University Langone, who noted that Ms. Wawrzyniak had suffered a compound fracture and that her bones were shattered.
“She could have died. I think she put in a lot of effort to get back to where she is now,” Borowski told the Post. “It’s not easy to get back to running, climbing and being as active as she is.”
Wawrzyniak believes in her progress sarah plummer holtzmana senior physical therapist at New York University Langone's Harkness Dance Injury Center and fellow mountaineer.
Plumer-Holtzman focused on Wawrzyniak's left ankle, hip, foot and gait to get her moving properly again.
“She had to learn how to fully relax her feet on the ground,” Plummer-Holtzman explained. “As soon as she did a squat or took a step on that foot, her foot started to roll outwards and her toes started to curl.”
She prescribed a series of exercises, including calf raises and standing on a balance disc, which Wawrzyniak still does at home.
She said she had great success in the gym almost three years after her tragic fall, and that climbing made her even stronger. Even if he's “lack of courage” to ice climb this season, he's “pretty happy” with what he's accomplished with his bionic ankle.
“When I broke my leg and thought I would never be able to walk again, I believed that if I practiced these things, I would get better one millimeter at a time, and that really saved my life,” Wawrzyniak recalled. “You know, one tiny, tiny little movement at a time.”
