Climber Kyle Walker's harrowing 60-foot free fall caught on camera

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Saturday, May 11, 2019
Climber's 60-foot free fall caught on camera
Kyle Walker's chest-mounted camera caught a harrowing 60-foot fall during a free climb in Colorado.

BOULDER, Colo. -- A climber says he is lucky to be alive after surviving a harrowing fall while attempting to scale a rock formation last month.

Kyle Walker was free climbing with no ropes in the Flatirons rock formations near Boulder, Colorado, in April when he lost his footing, he told the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper.

A GoPro camera strapped to his chest captured the fall, which Walker estimated was about 60 feet. It continued to roll as he tumbled down the rock face to a painful landing and then showed him moaning as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

Walker told the paper he broke both wrists and his pelvis and had eight busted ribs and a punctured lung. Another hiker eventually discovered him and notified authorities.

He said he healed remarkably quickly and is now out of the hospital.

"I consider myself beyond lucky and wouldn't recommend climbing new routes without practice or ropes to anyone," Walker told the newspaper.