On Saturday, Nicole Stachura was running a short distance ahead of her partner, Canadian 50K record holder and mountain runner Chris Balestrini, at Rogers Pass, B.C., when she suddenly heard him screaming in pain. When she reached him, he was already going into shock. Scrambling down to a ridge, Balestrini had accidentally dislodged a boulder, which smashed his thigh and broke the calf bone in his other leg.
The rock only pinned him for a moment before rolling away, but the damage was severe. “He was pale and couldn’t move his leg, and you worry about bleeding into the leg,” Stachura told Canadian Running. “He was cold, with low blood pressure. I had an emergency blanket in my bag, so I put that on him.” Fortunately, both Balestrini and Stachura are family medicine residents (based in Penticton) and Stachura was able to apply a tourniquet to the more seriously injured leg.
Stachura called out to another runner on the ridge, Aidan Sokup (who, by coincidence, turned out to be a medical student from Colorado), and who initiated a call to search and rescue. It took about an hour and a half, but finally a helicopter arrived. “Two people hopped out and helped us wrap Chris up, then they longlined him out, down to the road, where an ambulance was waiting,” she said.
The ambulance took Balestrini to the Queen Victoria Hospital in Revelstoke; he was later transported to a trauma centre in Kamloops, where he is currently being treated for the crush injury and fracture. He was admitted under vascular surgery, and a CT scan found an occluded artery near his femur. But so far, he’s been able to avoid surgery to repair the artery.
Stachura said that while he was in considerable pain for the first few days, Wednesday was better, and he’d been able to get out of bed. She added that Balestrini was being monitored for compartment syndrome (in which swelling impedes blood flow, potentially damaging nerves and muscles), but that the danger appeared to have subsided.
Chris Balestrini: Run Your Way
In 2023, Balestrini won gold in the North and Central American Mountain and Trail Running Championships’ 50K; he was named to Team Canada headed to Spain for the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships next month, and was planning to race Saturday’s Squamish 50 (50-mile event), but will have to forgo competition for the foreseeable future.
“We’ve had lots of support,” Stachura said. “I feel like anyone who knows Chris knows he needs to be outside and active all the time, and that will be the hardest part for the next while. But it could have been a lot worse–he could have lost his leg, or his life. He’s very motivated to get [healthy], and he’s in good spirits.”
