Isabel Suppé detailed her experience falling 1,100 feet from the side of a mountain in July 2010 to University of Wisconsin-Madison students and community members Tuesday.
Suppé currently roams the country by bicycle delivering motivational speeches and touring for the English version of her book, “Starry Night,” which she originally wrote in Spanish. The book documents the story of Suppé’s accident and has been a finalist for the prestigious Desnivel Award for Literature in Spain.
Suppé is a climbing enthusiast, and she said her passion is no coincidence. Her grandfather was a passionate climber, who walked from the Black Sea to Germany after World War II.
With her grandfather’s old climbing shoes strapped to her back, Suppé traveled from Argentina to Bolivia in 2010 with money she had been saving for a refrigerator to climb Ala Izquierda del Colibri in the Bolivian Andes.
Suppé said when she and her climbing partner reached a point just 100 feet from their goal, a misstep caused both climbers to fall and Suppé’s climbing rope to wrap tightly around her chest, threatening to suffocate her as she lay at the bottom of the summit.
She began to worry for her life when she noticed her severely broken foot, with bones protruding through her skin. The injury meant simply walking to get help was not an option, according to Suppé , so she crawled, dragging her foot behind her.
After two days and nights of forcing herself to stay awake, fighting off hallucinations and consulting her college physiology textbook to keep her alive, Suppé said she was finally rescued and brought to the hospital to tend to her mangled foot.
After 10 major surgeries, doctors told Suppé she would never climb again, but she continued to train in her hospital bed. She said she eventually returned to climbing, sporting a special pair of climbing crutches that her brother made for her. She refused to let her accident get in the way of her passion.
“Having a physical problem can’t ever mean that we cannot do something, it just means that we have to try harder and become more creative,” Suppé said.
