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There had been a series of very early mornings, and Richard hadn’t managed to get a run in for three days now and he was feeling antsy. More irritable, more short-tempered, and not just for the cameras. He was having to fight not to snap at the crew and he didn’t like being in that state of mind.
But this morning they were having a late start, they weren’t due to start filming until 8 and that would be a breakfast sequence at the hotel, so when he got up at 6, he thought he had plenty of time to get a good five mile run in. They were in the Austrian Alps and it was beautiful here with plenty of hiking trails. He would do two and a half miles out, two and a half miles back, stretch, shower and be on time for filming with his head in a better place.
His mind began to clear and he could feel the tension lift from his shoulders as the miles disappeared beneath his feet. He checked his fitness tracker to see he had done just over two miles, unfortunately it was a rookie mistake. He was coming around a bend just a little too close to the edge as the path gave way under his feet, then he was falling.
The wind was completely knocked out of his lungs, and he spent a minute or two just remembering to breathe. Unfortunately as he remembered to breathe, fiery tendrils of pain snaked their way rapidly around his back and down into his right hip. His left ankle throbbed dully adding to his misery. He let out a furious string of expletives before forcing himself to calm down and take stock of where he was.
He twisted a little to try and see where he had come from only to stop quickly because of the pain. That plan out he tried to see where he was now. The thick trunk of a tree was scratching against his stomach and when he felt behind him, he could feel the solid rock of a boulder against his back, all the way from his neck to his thighs. He was incredibly lucky he hadn’t hit his head. Managing to raise his shoulders and get his elbow underneath him, he looked towards his painful left ankle. It didn’t look twisted out of shape or at a funny angle, but it was caught firmly in between a couple of tree roots.
With the amount of pain he was in, there was no way he was getting out of his predicament without help, and if he couldn’t persuade the medics in the crew he was okay, then filming would be delayed by maybe a whole day because of him. He reached to his armband to find his mobile and call for help, only for it to be empty.
The phone must have been thrown free in the fall. He looked around only to see the item nearly eight feet away.
A wave of hopelessness and depression rushed over him. It had been a black few months, he had struggled with depression on and off since his major crash, but rarely had a wave come in quite so quickly.
He knew it was autumn in the Alps and now he wasn’t moving he was going to get cold quickly, which would be a problem. He knew no one would realise he was gone for at least an hour, perhaps longer. He knew he couldn’t reach his phone to call for help. Somehow he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“Have either of you seen Richard?” Andy asked Jeremy and James. It was nearly 8am and there was still no sign of the youngest presenter. They had not, so a member of the crew was dispatched to Richard’s room just in case he had overslept. Ten minutes later it had become clear that Richard was not at the hotel.
After speaking to the front desk and finding out what time Richard had left for his run, Andy returned to the other two presenters with the unsettling news.
“Can you two check your phones, just to make sure you haven’t missed a call or a text from him?” Andy asked them, they quickly confirmed they hadn’t.
“What’s going on, Andy, where is he?” James asked.
“He’s not in the hotel. Reception say he left at about ten past six this morning in running gear and he hasn’t come back yet.” Andy explained succinctly.
“So he should have been back by 7:30 at the latest. If he hasn’t rung to let us know what’s going on, then something has probably happened which means he can’t.” Jeremy concluded. “Which means we should probably go looking for him or we won’t get any filming done today at all.”
The joke at the end fell flat, the anxiety thick in the air.
“According to the front desk, there’s one path that leads straight into the woods, that he probably took, but after about two kilometres it branches off into three different paths. We’ll do three groups and our medics will split up. Two groups will have a paramedic with them, the third first aiders, and everyone will take flasks of hot liquid, space blankets and a basic first aid kit. We’ll keep in touch via radios, and as soon as we find him, hopefully we’ll be able to call for aid if needed.” Andy explained.
“Andy, you know Richard, he’s tough as nails, he survived four days on top of a mountain in Canada, and he went for a run in his off time. There is absolutely nothing you could have done to prevent this.” Jeremy could see the guilt written on Andy’s face.
Andy just gave a tight smile in return. The party of twelve crew members left, keeping their eyes peeled as they set off down the path. They made good time, and twenty minutes later they were splitting off into three groups.
Jeremy was walking ahead of his group, why he was he couldn’t fully explain, as out of the four of them he was the oldest, with the most joint issues and the least likely to actually be able to help once they found Hammond, but being at the front made him feel like he was being helpful, so that’s where he stayed.
As they came around a tight bend he spotted a point where the path looked like it had given way. He looked down the wooded mountainside but he couldn’t see anything. Unwilling to give up, he called Richard’s mobile, still scanning the slope for any signs of movement.
Then Richard’s phone lit up and started ringing loudly. Jeremy spotted it around 4 meters down the slope but he still couldn’t see Richard. He waved the others over.
“His phone’s down there but I can’t see him yet.” He explained before shouting “Hammond!”
The others were looking for a way down but Jeremy was just focused on looking for his friend. Then he spotted a brightly coloured trainer, tangled in the roots of a tree with a skinny white leg attached.
“There!“ he shouted before continuing to call Richard’s name. Finally his efforts were rewarded when…
“Jeremy?” Came back.
“You alright, Hammond?” The relief Jeremy felt at hearing Richard’s voice was enormous.
“I’m a bit stuck mate, if I’m honest” Jeremy almost laughed in relief. By this point the others had found a way down, and Jeremy was able to follow them, with a guiding hand or two. Then he made his way around to see Richard, jammed in pretty tightly.
“How the hell did you manage to do that?” Jeremy asked.
“The path gave way underneath my feet. It wasn’t deliberate. Then I was stuck.” Richard’s eyes were bright and alert, but he sounded exhausted and his lips had taken on a slightly blue tinge.
Luckily they were one of the two groups with a paramedic. Who wasted no time spreading a space blanket over Richard and assessing his injuries. The swollen ankle was gently disentangled from the tree that had snatched it and a brief assessment took place, establishing that while Richard had bruised his back and hip quite badly, it didn’t look as if anything was broken, not even the ankle.
As the assessment went on, it became more obvious that Richard was in quite a lot of pain and very cold. Mild hypothermia had set in and making sure it didn’t get any worse was now their primary concern. That and getting Richard out from where he had jammed himself.
“For the moment, let us do all the work, let yourself be as limp and relaxed as possible so you don’t strain your back any further as we lift you out.” The paramedic was explaining to Richard, before he was lifted at the shoulders and gently dragged out from between the tree and the boulder.
Richard sat for another few minutes, drinking the hot tea with the space blanket wrapped around his shoulders as the colour came back into his lips and he started looking a bit less pale.
It was decided that the best way forward was to wrap Richard’s ankle here, and for two of them to support Richard as he limped to the track. Luckily there was an exit to a road only a couple of hundred meters further on, so the other groups, who had now been contacted, were regrouping and a stretcher would meet them on the path, so that Richard could be brought back to the hotel.
Jeremy ended up bringing up the rear, carrying the paramedic bag as Richard slowly made his way back up the to path, half limping, half being carried. It took far longer to get back up the slope than it had taken to get down it, and Richard was obviously in agony. He wouldn’t take any painkillers until a final decision had been made about whether or not to take him to hospital. More than once Jeremy wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to just carry the man, before shoving that thought to the side. The mud and slippery leaves made the slope treacherous enough even for the most sure footed person and carrying Richard was a way to almost ensure a second accident. Everyone involved was relieved when they were all safely on the path again. A blanket was spread out to insulate from the ground and Richard lowered down onto it, guarding his ankle, back and hip as much as he could. Jeremy took the opportunity to sit next to him, pressing their shoulders together.
“You alright?” Jeremy asked, handing back Richard’s now slightly cracked mobile.
“Yes. I’m embarrassed, and I’m quite cross with myself for holding up filming and not managing to get out myself, but I’m fine. I’ll just be sore for a few days and then I’m back to normal.”
The length of the response showed how cross Richard actually was, so Jeremy went quiet as they waited.
It wasn’t until several hours later, after Richard had escaped hospital but been sent to bed with painkillers for the day instead, that Jeremy voiced his concern.
He and James were sitting on the hotel’s terrace with hot chocolates looking out at the view, and supposedly reworking the script for tomorrow, not that much reworking was getting done.
“Hammond’s tough as nails.” Jeremy said. James frowned at the non-sequitur but nodded, seeing how bothered Jeremy was.
“He bounced back from having his brain turned to mush in a jet car, he ran and skied thirty plus miles a day to get to the North Pole, he gave us both a run for our money cycling across London and St Petersburg, every time he crashes he seems to just bounce back up.”
“Where are you going with this?” James asked.
“That means he must have a pretty high pain tolerance, right”
“Probably higher than either of ours.”
“And he’s done all of that survival training, so he knew that hypothermia was a risk.” Jeremy continued. James just went quiet, giving his friend the space he needed to get to the point.
“I think Hammond was unconscious when we got there. I was calling for a good minute, minute and a half before he responded, and he was white as a ghost with blue lips when I arrived.” Jeremy continued.
“Jeremy, he woke up, we got him back, it was scary for me too, but he’s okay.”
“But he knows better, he knows that the cold could have killed him, he knows he needs to stay awake an alert.” Jeremy insisted.
“He was out there for at least two hours before we found him, and it’s freezing this morning, he might not have been able to.” James attempted.
“And there’s another thing. Yes where he got himself stuck was awkward, and it would have been painful, but he’s not stupid. Had he stopped and thought for a minute or two he would have been able to get himself out and call for help on his phone. The screen was broken but the phone was fine. He could have got himself out and called for help, but he didn’t even try!”
“Jeremy…”
“What if we hadn’t found him. When we got there the hypothermia was still mild but it snowed later this morning. What if we hadn’t found him? What if the woman at reception hadn’t remembered him?”
“Jeremy!”
“What?”
“You’re making a scene. We’ll talk about it but let’s go to your room.” James was firm and Jeremy slumped, the wind taken out of his anger.
They left their empty cups and made their way to Jeremy’s room. The atmosphere was thick and awkward.
“Before you start shouting again, Hammond’s asleep next door and the soundproofing isn’t great here so if you shout you’ll wake him up.” James announced, deliberately taking a seat in the armchair next to the window, leaving Jeremy with the choice of perching on the bed like a chastened schoolboy, or standing up. Jeremy chose the bed and as soon as he was settled, James continued.
“Firstly, don’t let your mind go down the rabbit hole of what if we hadn’t found him. From the point he didn’t arrive downstairs for filming it took less than 20 minutes to work out he wasn’t in the hotel and less than 30 to set out and find him. Even if the receptionist hadn’t remembered him, everyone on the crew and half the British public know he likes to go running in the morning, and there was only one track he was likely to set off on. No one here is stupid, it wouldn’t have taken that long to work out. Maybe we would have got there half an hour later. Maybe it would have taken him longer to warm up. He would still be okay. Alright?” James had gone into lecture mode, keeping his tone calm and even. It was working, Jeremy was still upset, but not nearly as worked up as he had been downstairs.
“Okay” Jeremy responded. James hesitated before continuing, weighing the reality of breaking a confidence against the possibility of reassuring his friend. Eventually he decided against.
“In regards to the other thing, whether or not he could have got himself out. I have a theory, but I can’t share it without breaking a confidence, but we’ll discuss it later, all three of us, when Hammond’s feeling a bit better and a bit more time has passed so he doesn’t bite our heads off the moment we raise it. Are you feeling a bit better now? Can we keep working on the script or do you need a break?”
A moment of indignation flashed over Jeremy’s face for a second before he deflated.
“Script” he grunted. And the two men got back to work.
Some weeks later, after a long night at the pub, Richard was able to confide in his mates that yes, he had been dealing with depression on and off, and as fitness and pain thresholds are more about mental barriers than physical ones, that morning he just couldn’t push through the pain enough to get his phone. He was quick to reassure the others that he had been fairly certain that he would be found soonish, and that he was talking to Mindy and a therapist about it on a regular basis. The conversation was never revisited when the men were sober, but some behaviour changed. Cups of tea, or invitations over to each other’s flats were offered and accepted more frequently when Richard was withdrawn or irritable. Support was given unobtrusively, and the balance returned to their friendship.