It wasn’t a great vacation for Mitch Klann in 2012. 

But on the plus side, his unlucky holiday has given him an opportunity to be the ALERT Air Ambulance poster child at the medical helicopter service’s annual banquet April 25.

Klann came up to the Flathead Valley from Phoenix in October 2012 to go to a friend’s wedding with his son, Mason, and girlfriend of two months, Charpei Chen.

Klann, now 44, decided to take his loved ones up to Glacier National Park to see it before it closed for the season.

On Oct. 7, the three set out on the Avalanche Trail.

“I had done quite a bit of hiking and it’s a pretty easy trail,” Klann said. “So I felt pretty comfortable.”

He got to a rock outcropping and wanted to look out onto the cold, fast-flowing Avalanche Creek as it gushes through narrow Avalanche Gorge. He stood on a smooth rock and beckoned to Mason, then 6 years old.

“He said he was a little nervous to come out where I was, so I guess he’s the only one of us with any sense,” Klann said. “I guess I was concentrating more on him when I should have been focused on the slippery, mossy surface I was on. I slipped backwards and fell into the gorge.”

Klann banged his way down into the icy water and was swept downstream over two sets of waterfalls and into an eddy pool.

“I swam out of that area onto a rock by the creek,” he said. “I yelled out to my girlfriend asking if Mason was all right and that I thought I had broken my hip.”

His hip socket had all but exploded from being bashed on the same rocks he found so beautiful, and the icy water had taken its toll as well. Hypothermia was setting in. 

Avalanche, a well-traveled trail in Glacier, had a fair share of hikers willing to help the injured Klann.

“We had seen one of those blue telephones up there and thought that was a little silly,” he said. “After my fall, we knew why it was there. Over the next two hours we had a bunch of volunteers, hikers come and try to offer assistance.”

Shea Heffernan, a former emergency medical technician, was the first to respond to Klann, wading out into the water to do spot medical care. Carol Hill ran down the hill to call rangers. Scott Fierro spoke to Klann to keep him from going into shock and eventually got in the water to put the injured man on a rescue board. 

Stuart and Elizabeth Hedingham, nurses at Kalispell Regional Medical Center, were on hand to help Klann and keep Mason (who had slipped into the creek earlier in the hike) warm.

“People gave me warm clothes to help, pulled me out or the water and put me on that rescue board,” Klann said. They lifted my leg out of the water and flipped me on my back. I was on my belly, so flipping me was an excruciating process.”

He was out on a rock in the middle of the creek, making it impossible to reach him from above. Rescuers had to wade out to him from downstream.

“It was a fairly complex rescue to get me out of there,” Klann said. 

When 911 was called, the ALERT helicopter responded from Kalispell. Klann was moved 1.5 miles to a clearing where the helicopter could take the cold and injured hiker to Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

Dr. Kim Stimpson, an orthopedic surgeon, was waiting for Klann when he arrived.

“The people at the Kalispell hospital were amazing,” Klann said. “They were checking on me constantly to make sure I was doing well.”

But Klann wasn’t doing well. The impromptu creek trip had caused skin to separate from his musculature in a term which you probably shouldn’t Google: degloving. He had to be flown somewhere else.

“ALERT flew me out from Kalispell to Seattle Harborview Hospital,” he said. “The doctor there dealt with things like that said on a scale of one to 10, one being the easiest case, 10 being the worst, mine was a seven.”

The avulsion injuries that caused the degloving were repaired, the pelvis and hip injuries were screwed back together and Klann lived to hike another day.

“If ALERT hadn’t been there that day, I might not be here today,” he said. “I can’t say enough good things about them and Kalispell medical staff. There was a lot of fear I could have bled to death internally.”

Mason was flown to Colorado, where Klann’s brother Mike lived. He sat next to a New York woman who was in mourning after her Flathead-resident brother had died recently. The two provided a fortunate dose of comfort to one another, Klann said.

His recovery from the major traumatic orthopedic injury was swift. In July 2013, Klann accomplished one of his goals.

“We were flying to Seattle and the pilot asked if I could sit up, because there was something special out the window,” he said. “I prop myself up, and it’s this clear day and there’s Mount Rainier in all its glory. I had Kilimanjaro in 2007 and I wanted to conquer Rainier before moving onto Denali or something north.”

He climbed Mount Rainier the July after his injury. The only sign of his injury is some numbness where they cut into him (“from hip to hip”) and the scars.

“It’s mostly in the past now,” he said.

The 37th ALERT Banquet will celebrate Klann’s recovery story April 25. 

The event begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Trade Center Building at the Flathead County Fairgrounds and dinner starts at 7 p.m. The event is the air ambulance service’s primary fundraiser for the year.

Tickets are $300 per couple and can be purchased by calling Lori Alsbury at 752-1710.

For Klann, it will be a chance to visit his rescuers, and yes, go on another hike.

“I think I learned a little bit from last time,” he said. “I promise to be more careful.”

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.