He was hanging from a cliff by his fingertips. Then he had to let go.
Chuck Rosenberg was hiking on a cliff in Costa Rica. The trail was about eight stories up, overlooking the ocean. Then he slipped. He survived to tell us what happened - but just barely. ...
Chuck Rosenberg was hiking on a cliff in Costa Rica. The trail was about eight stories up, overlooking the ocean. Then he slipped. He survived to tell us what happened - but just barely.
"I'm feeling lucky," he told Carol. "I have a great deal of pain, but I remind myself what the alternative could have been."
When Toronto's Rosenberg took a misstep on the hiking trail, he was about 80 feet above the ground and sea below him. He watched debris and rocks bounce down the cliff. He grabbed onto a branch. He held on for three or four minutes before it snapped. Then he only just managed to grab onto the edge of the cliff.
"Picture hanging on to the top of a rooftop. You see that in movies all the time. And your fingers slowly sliding," Rosenberg said. "That's what was happening, except it was a sharp rock and it was cutting up my fingers."
The area where Chuck Rosenberg was hiking when he fell. (Photo courtesy of Chuck Rosenberg)
He said he knew that he was going to fall onto the rock below and he was convinced he was going to die.
"What I was thinking about was my [four] children," he said. "You say 'goodbye.' I told my children I loved them. Each one of them, separately. And then my hands let go."
He bounced down the cliff, hitting the rock several times on the way down. He blacked out at points. As he landed at the bottom, he hit his head. He heard his nose snap and felt blood all over his face.
When he came to, he started screaming for help. But there was no one around for miles. Then he remembered he had a cell phone. Incredibly, it was crushed, but still working.
He managed to reach his friend Greg Khan, who lived nearby. Khan figured out where Rosenberg had landed and called for help. Soon, staff from a local shop arrived on a jet ski, followed by the Coast Guard, who rushed him to an ER.
He's now communicating daily with his children from the private hospital in Costa Rica where he is recovering,
"It's really motivated me to heal quickly and get home."
The damage to Chuck Rosenberg's fingertips from where he was holding onto the cliff. (Photo courtesy of Chuck Rosenberg)