Texas man partially blinded after branch impaled his eye in freak fall on dream vacation
A Texas father has lost use of one of his eyes after he suffered a freak accident while on a hiking trip in Canada.
Ed Steinkamp, 67, left on 30 April for a once in a lifetime vacation with his 28-year-old son Bret to hike along Victoria’s coast. While ambling along the trail of the massive West Coast Trail on the third day of their trek, Mr Steinkamp attempted to navigate across a fallen tree but quickly lost his balance and as he fell towards the ground, a branch impaled his eye.
The wound, medics later determined, went so deep they believe it nearly touched his brain.
Mr Steinkamp, described by his family in a GoFundMe campaign as an avid hiker, was fortunately able to be airlifted by Pacheedahl First National Guardians to Victoria General Hospital. Sadly, for the maimed father, he was forced to wait in desperate pain for six hours as it took the rescue group six hours to get to him between refuelling stops.
Once he was at the Victoria General Hospital, the 67-year-old was rushed into surgery where he was treated for the wounds to his brain and eye. Following the emergency procedure, he was hospitalised in the ICU for several days and is now recovering in the hospital’s neuro trauma ward.
“Ed is now fighting infection and is in much pain. It has been determined he has lost sight in one eye and is fighting an ongoing fever,” the GoFundMe page reads.
His wife, Wendy, was able to fly out and join her husband at his hospital’s bedside immediately following the accident and is staying at a nearby hotel with the pair’s son.
Costs for the freak accident that led to a massive rescue operation, a multi-day stay in the ICU, a serious surgery and the loss of an eye is totalling in the hundreds of thousands for the Steinkamp family, the GoFundMe campaign, created by family friend Susan Lowe, explained.
“Ed will not be allowed to fly for months, so they will now need to rent a vehicle and drive him across the country to get home when he is finally released, which with the cost of car rentals and gas and another week of hotel bills can be enormous,” Ms Lowe wrote.
The fundraiser, she explains, will hopefully help offset some of that cost, which, she added, is the least they can do for a man who “has touched so many of our lives with kindness and laughter”.
“He has never turned down any one of us whenever we have asked for help or in our time of need. Let us now help him in his.”
As of Thursday afternoon, the fundraiser had raised more than $17,000 (£13,595) of its $200,000 (£159,954) goal.
