It was a perfect afternoon at raft camp… clear skies, warm air, the kind of day where everything just feels right. I was out on the airstrip messing around with this old boomerang I had found on campus. It was weathered, warped, and honestly didn’t work very well… but I was determined to catch it.
Throw after throw, I kept chasing it down, trying to figure it out. My friends were watching at this point, probably wondering what I was doing. And then Steve… aka Scamp… yells out, “Jay, Jay, you’ve got this. You’re gonna get it.”
So I gave it everything I had. I ran… jumped as high as I could… reached as far as I could…
And I missed it.
But when I landed… I landed wrong.
A loud crack.
Immediately, I knew. Something was very wrong.
I limped my way back to the cook shack and told everyone I thought I had just broken my ankle. Not good. I was in shock. I asked my friend Ian to help me back to my room, using him as a crutch as I hopped across the yard. Once I got there, I laid down and tried to assess the situation.
I’ve broken bones before—motocross, other dumb decisions—so I knew what this was. Ian brought me a bag of ice, and that night was just survival… ibuprofen, ice, and trying to manage the pain. No quick trip to urgent care out here. The nearest real help was two hours away in Fairbanks.
The next morning, I made the trip. I didn’t really know where to go, so I called around and eventually got pointed in the right direction… an orthopedic clinic. They got me in quickly. After the first round of X-rays, the doctor told me it could go either way… maybe a boot, maybe surgery. We needed one more set of images.
So I waited.
And then I got the news… worst case. Surgery.
The break was bad enough that it had essentially opened up my ankle joint. If we didn’t fix it properly, I could have long-term issues just walking. A few days later, I was in surgery in Fairbanks, getting everything put back together. Plates, screws, wires… the whole deal.
It wasn’t easy. I didn’t have health insurance, and just like that, my entire savings account was gone. But… it’s just money, right?
What mattered was getting back on my feet.
Recovery was rough. I was on crutches in a remote, wild place, trying to finish out the season. And somehow… I did. It wasn’t pretty, but I pushed through.
Here’s a look at the aftermath… the sutures, the swelling, the reality of it all.
Definitely a defining moment of my first season in Alaska.
And all that metal in my ankle now…
That’s my Alaskan souvenir.
journeyvision 