An emergency room nurse survived a terrifying hiking accident on Montana’s tallest mountain after he slipped, fell onto his own trekking pole, and then made an extraordinary 10-mile descent with the pole still lodged through his torso.

David Cifaldi, a 32-year-old ER nurse, was climbing Granite Peak with two friends last Monday when the freak accident happened at about 11,800 feet. According to KTMF and a GoFundMe created to help with his medical expenses, Cifaldi slipped on loose rocks and landed directly on one of his trekking poles.

“I just slipped on some rocks,” Cifaldi told the outlet. “It was just kind of a freak thing.”

When he got back up, Cifaldi realized the pole had gone cleanly through his side, with part of the rod sticking out of both ends of his torso.

Rather than panic, Cifaldi said his medical training kicked in almost immediately.

“I think my nurse brain clicked on,” he said. “As soon as I was able to self-assess and establish that this was not life-threatening right now, I was pretty convinced I was going to get off that mountain under my own power.”

Cifaldi and his friends made the crucial decision not to remove the pole, since pulling it out could have caused far more serious bleeding or internal damage. Instead, they began the long and grueling journey back down the mountain.

One friend used a satellite communicator to contact local search and rescue, while another stayed beside Cifaldi as he made his way across dangerous terrain, including boulder fields and snowfields.

His friend Jesse Ross later described the surreal descent in a GoFundMe statement, saying Cifaldi made it down past Mystic Lake and reached the trailhead under his own power.

“David navigated the plateau’s snowfields and boulder fields, made his way down past Mystic Lake, and reached the trailhead entirely under his own power — never once complaining, staying in remarkably high spirits,” Ross wrote.

Even while seriously injured, Cifaldi was reportedly thinking about others. Near Mystic Lake, Ross said, Cifaldi asked one of his friends to hike ahead and warn other hikers so children would not have to see the gruesome wound.

After about six and a half hours, Cifaldi finally reached the trailhead. He was taken to a hospital and later transferred to Intermountain Health in Billings, where doctors removed the trekking pole.

Cifaldi said he knows the accident could have ended very differently.

“I feel very lucky,” he said. “A couple inches the other way, and this would be a different story.”

The ER nurse is now recovering and hopes to return to caring for patients as soon as he can. However, he is also facing significant medical bills, along with the possibility of another surgery.

A fundraiser set up to help cover his medical expenses has raised more than $2,700 toward a $10,000 goal.