June• 2019 | 57equipment, and Garrett, Montoya,
Yardley and one other medic took off
down the road. When they reached the
burned-out bridge, the medics turned
around.If someone slips, they’ll be
dead, Montoya thought. They couldn’t
take that risk. So they ran about a kilo-
metre back up the hill and crossed the
creek on the upper bridge. Then they
bushbashed across cliffs and through
waist-high poison oak.
When they arrived at 12.51pm, the
scene took Yardley by surprise. My
pants were half off. Diarrhoea had
started about 20 minutes after the
bite, and my mum and dad had been
rolling me from my back to my side
to vomit or defecate. I was pale and
sweating, moaning in pain. Bloodwept from the puncture wounds
on my ankle and bruising, a sign of
internal h aemorrhaging, had bloomed
above m y knee. My mum also noticed
patches of blood in my bile.YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK KEEPS
a small supply of antivenom on hand,
but it had been used the previous
year and hadn’t yet been restocked.
Instead, Yardley tossed my mum a
blood-pressure cuff and grabbed
1500 ml of saline, a pill to stop the
vomiting, and fentanyl, a powerful
painkiller.
He stuck a needle into each of my
arms. The drugs worked. I hurt less
and stopped purging. And the IV
PHOTO: ILIAS KOUROUDIS/SHUTTERSTOCK rehydrated me temporarily.
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