Impaled by his own trekking pole, American hiker walks 16 km for surgery

3 min readJul 30, 2026 10:46 AM IST David Cifaldi was impaled by a trekking pole after falling near the summit of Granite Peak in Montana. (Photo/Go Fund Me)David Cifaldi was hiking Montana’s tallest mountain on July 20 with two of his friends when he slipped on a rock after nearly seven hours on the trail. The first thing he noticed after the fall was not his injuries, but his missing trekking pole. Events took a horrific turn when he realised that his ‘missing’ trekking pole wasn’t actually missing; rather it had impaled him. “Oh, this thing is sticking out of me,” he said.The 32-year-old nurse at St. Vincent Regional Hospital in Billings, Mont, immediately assessed the injury. The pole pierced through his left side muscle below the armpit and protruded out his back, missing his chest ca