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Pro climber Emily Harrington took a ‘bad fall’ on El Cap over the weekend. Fortunately, she had an all-star crew to get her to safety.
Five-time U.S. National Champion climber Emily Harrington posted a bruised and battered selfie yesterday from her Community Regional Medical Center hospital bed.
Harrington revealed to her followers she suffered non-life-threatening injuries after a fall from the towering face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.
Harrington said she fell, then “pin balled a bit then somehow hit the rope with my neck.” Thankfully, she was surrounded by some of the most accomplished climbers in the world — including Alex Honnold and Adrian Ballinger.
Honnold famously made waves last year when he became the only person ever to free solo El Cap and starred in what became the Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo,” which chronicled the epic climb.
Ballinger, a world-renowned mountain guide who’s led famous expeditions on Mount Everest — and is also Harrington’s boyfriend — also posted photos of Harrington at the scene of the accident. According to Ballinger, he found Harrington “crumpled on a ledge after a big fall in below freezing temperatures.”
Ballinger said Honnold kept the 33-year-old Harrington talking while rescue crews rushed to the scene, and that they kept her immobilized because there was “a lot of reasons to suspect spinal injury.”
Yosemite Search and Rescue arrived within 90 minutes, Ballinger posted, and got Harrington off the wall. And paramedics later cleared her of any spinal injuries, he confirmed.
Adam Ruggiero is the Editor in Chief of GearJunkie and host of the GearJunkie Podcast. He cut his teeth as a freelancer, and then news reporter for the site in 2015.
Along with founder Stephen Regenold and Editorial Director Sean McCoy, Ruggiero graduated from the University of Minnesota School of Journalism. He was the recipient of the 2022 Outdoor Media Summit “Editor of the Year” award, and regularly co-hosts the industry’s “Gear Guide” at both summer and winter Outdoor Retailer trade shows.
In addition to accurate and impartial news reporting, and compelling, original storytelling, his interests include camping in all climates and conditions, track cycling and bikepacking, all forms of fitness, the resplendent majesty of coffee, and sports of every kind.