She Was Climbing El Capitan When She Fell

Emily Harrington is 'banged up but gonna be OK'
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 26, 2019 9:25 AM CST
Updated Nov 30, 2019 3:37 PM CST
Free Solo Star Helps Save El Capitan Climber
This Jan. 14, 2015, file photo shows El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in California.   (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)

A top rock climber is thankful to be alive after falling from El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. "I took a bad fall and pin balled a bit then somehow hit the rope [with] my neck," Emily Harrington wrote Monday on Instagram, sharing a photo of her resting in a hospital bed with a nasty rope burn wrapping around her neck. The five-time US sport climbing champion free-climbed El Capitan's Golden Gate route in 2015, but she'd been pushing to do the same in a single day, per CNN.

The outlet notes Alex Honnold—the first person to climb the 3,200-foot monolith without a safety rope, as shown in the 2018 Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo—was among those to rescue Harrington. "I'm banged up but gonna be OK thankfully," the 33-year-old wrote. Weeks earlier, she described her progress on El Capitan as "slow and steady (and still a bit bloody)," per the Blast. (El Capitan claimed two lives last year.)

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