I blinked my eyes open suddenly as if I had just woken from a long and unexpected nap. I stared at the patch of dirt in front of me, in what was essentially the middle of the woods. I had a slight buzz in my ears, similar to that feeling of accidentally allowing yourself to lose your sense of hearing at a concert. The first thing I noticed was the profuse sweat dripping out of my helmet, navigating its way down the sides of my cheeks, all the way down to my chest. I tried to allow myself to wipe some of it off with the back of my hand when I realized both of my hands were frozen in front of my body. Both sprawled in a patch of dirt, I admired the shine of my five rings in the filth they laid upon.

 

I released the slightest gust of air, but when I went to inhale for the first time, I couldn’t. I drowned in carbon dioxide as I observed my stomach rising and falling, yet giving me absolutely no relief. I began to gather my surroundings as my mind caught up with my tangle of flesh and rope on the solid ground that was once 15 feet below me. It must’ve been at least 30 seconds before trying to collect breath turned into trying to hold my breath in hopes of avoiding the catastrophic pain shooting from my tailbone to the top of my back. It was a sheer miracle I didn’t throw up all over myself at that exact moment.

 

The first person that could get to me was sort of our babysitter of the trip, always planning things for us to do outside of our internships and making sure we had some good, safe, fun. Well let me tell you, it might’ve been more of a miracle that she didn’t throw up as she took one look at my sweaty discombobulated body. Her face the color of Elmer’s glue, she tossed her unfinished cigarette as she gently touched my face asking if I was okay. Well no, I thought, I am not okay. “I’m not sure,” I answered, struggling to force sound out of my mouth.

 

I found the strength to use my arms and earth encrusted hands to pull my heavy legs to the front of my body. Slowly, a flicker of terror veiled me as I realized after moving that I hadn’t felt the touch of my hand on my legs as I moved them. I closed my eyes as I somehow mustered up the courage to attempt to wiggle my toes, fearful that I’d be moving them, but they’d be as frozen as my hands just were. I sucked a gasp of air in and squinted my eyes and...whew. They still move.

 

“Wow! What happened?” someone else asked. He was an older man, the creator of Birthright Macedonia, walking with a cane as he also tossed his cigarette  (everyone and their Baba smokes in Macedonia). He looked me up and down as he realized I might actually not be okay. Well, when everyone watches you fall 15 feet off of a high ropes course you didn’t even want to be on, you sort of feel like you don’t have to answer "What happened?" “That’ll be one damn good bruise you’ll have,” he said, chuckling. Ha ha ha, I thought. Some damn GOOD bruise.

 

Someone at that time took my helmet off, I’m not even sure who, and I somehow made it to where I was laying on my back with my knees bent up toward the sky and my head resting on the helmet. When I got there, I glared up at the monkey-like bars dangling above my head, immediately filled with confusion. How the hell did this just happen?

 

I laid limp on the ground, drenched in my salty sudor, and patched all over with more dirt than blood surprisingly. One of the other participants, who had bought a large Macedonian flag the week before, happened to be wearing it as a cape as he made his way through the ropes course ahead of me. He looked at me with wide eyes as he handed one end of the flag to whoever was opposite him (I can’t remember now). They held the flag over me, but not too far over me, with the intention of blocking the sun. It felt more like I was being lowered into a coffin and the door was being slowly closed.

 

No one really knew how to look at me, I'm not sure they even wanted to. We weren’t sure what was wrong and we absolutely weren’t aware of the severity of it. “You’re really tough, you know that? You’re not even crying and you just fell 15 feet,” the flag bearer said. Was I really that tough though? I know now that I definitely wasn’t prepared for what was to come.

 

“Call the ambulance….now,” I managed to whisper out, though it felt like someone was hugging me so tight I couldn’t breathe. Yet somehow, I wasn’t feeling as comforted as I did when I was getting a hug.

 

At this point or maybe before, you know it’s sort of hard to snapshot minute by minute when you crack yourself in half, a doctor came wearing jeans and a t-shirt, I’m told. I don’t remember being examined very thoroughly, he just sort of asked me how I felt and where I was feeling it. I pointed to my back, too winded to even really respond with words. You know, in a second world country where not a lot of drama occurs, a very American young girl falling off of a high ropes course kind of leaves you clueless. The best advice he could come up with was to send me to the hospital. We were all clueless at this point.

 

I do vividly remember in the midst of my trip between being blacked out and being all there, a Bulgarian man who ran the ropes course coming over to tell me I had not clipped myself in. Trying not to get frustrated, I told him it was actually impossible that that was the case because I would have realized if the clips were at my feet dangling versus above me. I wanted to scream at him that I wasn’t an idiot, I clipped myself into the tree just as he showed me. I wanted to tell him that in America, we have clips that screw on and although I did sign the waiver that was in a language I could read but not understand, it was their fault. It was their fault that the clip failed, it was their fault that I fell.

 

What’s funny is right before I fell another girl in my group had expressed the fear I’m sure most of us were feeling about being up in the trees in such a sketchy looking place, but she opted to skip certain parts of the course before she ended up completely getting down. She was behind me, so I was trailing through different parts of the course a few people ahead of her. I bet she was feeling pretty glad she got down at that point.

 

Two nurses dressed in what looked like white crocs with no holes and all white scrubs rushed up to me. Same as the doctor, their faces seemed to be the same color as their outfits. When they realized I was speaking English, their fear turned into confusion and I think we were all wondering what exactly would happen next.

 

“Um...what is...name?” one asked.

 

“Nicole,” I said, the first word I managed to get out without my breath feeling like it couldn’t escape my own body.

 

“Okay, you to stand up and walk to ambulance,” she said in response.

 

She’s got to be joking. I’ve been told I have a very emotive face, so I can only imagine the look I gave her at that moment. I had just told her that I essentially landed on my spine and that my entire back was hurting. Oh sure! Let me run a marathon!

 

“Bring me the stretcher...now,” I said sternly. I’ve been told since that this was where by some higher power unknown to me, I was given my beam of self-advocacy. If I had chosen to actually listen to the nurses, there’s a great chance I couldn’t wiggle my toes for you today.

 

Up until then, I hadn't cried because I just wasn’t sure what was going on. Remember how everyone kept telling me I was so tough? Well you can be damn sure that I let out a goosebump evoking scream when they lifted me into the stretcher. Tears immediately flooded my eyes; I guess I wasn't such a tough guy after all.

 

At this point, my friend Dillon, who had been on the course directly following me, had requested to be let down. He said from above that he’d come with me to the hospital. He ran to the bus we rode in to get there to grab our overnight bags as well as my purse and the hat I had taken off to put my helmet on---at least my head had been protected. Our babysitter tried to convince him to not come with me, as she was sending her friend whom I had never met to take me on a journey we weren't sure had a destination.

 

“Nikki will be fine, she’ll be fine. Come to Strumica with us,” she said.

 

Dillon insisted on coming in the ambulance with me, not letting me go alone with a stranger in a country I barely knew. Honestly I didn’t even know him very well at this point either, so he could've been considered a stranger too. I’m not sure he knew the mess he was getting himself into and I’ve never asked him, but I wonder if he knew now what kind of day would follow if he’d do it again.