I saw a man die while on vacation.

I’ve been to a lot of countries, but I’ve never been on a hike as dangerous as the one I went on in Peru last month. The Inca Trail was something I had wanted to do for quite some time, but the prospect of climbing 8,000 ft in a matter of days, in the middle of May, was daunting to say the least. But once I saw all the wonderful comments and reviews of the trail from other travelers, I was sold. My husband and I signed up for a group tour with a small Peruvian company and booked our flights to Lima.<br><br>Day 1 was pretty uneventful. We drove from Lima to Cuzco where we stayed the night. Cuzco is not exactly known for its food, and the next morning, I wasn’t feeling my best. We left for the trail at around noon, started climbing immediately, and by around 4 ish all of my luggage had been dropped off at the first hotel and I was on the trail with my husband, sniffling and trying not to cry. The first day of the trail went as well as could be expected, but I was in a terrible mood. I was tired, cold, and my nose was running non stop. Thank god for cold medicine! We made friends with some other travelers along the way and camped with them at the end of day 1. It rained all night, which sucked, but we had a warm tent and were exhausted, so we got plenty of sleep.<br><br>Day 2 was the worst day of my life. We woke up at 6:30, packed our tent, and hit the trails. The plan for the day was to get to a certain spot, which would give us the best view of the sunrise, and allow us to climb to the highest point on the trail (around 13,124 ft). I was feeling better that morning, having taken my cold medicine, but it rained again that night and I woke up around 4 am to go to the bathroom. It was so cold and dark out that I didn’t really feel like going, but of course I had to. When I got back in our tent, I felt like something was off. I lay down to go to sleep and the warm feeling in my stomach started to grow, and before I knew it, it had been around 30 minutes and things were starting to feel really wrong. Still, I didn’t think too much of it. I had eaten a lot of beans and corn chips the previous day and was pretty confident that things would be fine. But once we got up around 5:30 to start walking, I knew something bad was happening. <br><br>I won’t get too graphic, but I was very, very sick. I hadn’t eaten much the previous day because I wasn’t feeling well, and the only thing I had in my stomach was a small amount of Gatorade, a banana, and some cookies I had brought with me. I was so weak and dizzy that at one point, I had to grab a tree to keep myself standing. My friend, who was behind me on the trail, told me to sit down. I tried, but I kept falling over. At that point, my husband suggested we head back to camp. I was so weak and dizzy that I could barely walk. <br><br>We got back to camp around 6:30 and immediately went to the bathroom. I threw up about a quart of yellow fluid and felt a bit better. I still had stomach cramps, but I was able to walk around camp without trouble. My husband suggested we go see a doctor at a camp about 15 minutes away. The doctor there gave me an injection of antibiotics and some water and told me to rest. <br><br>At this point, the camp was already stirring and people were starting to make their way up the mountain. My husband and I went to sit in our tent and take a nap. I woke up around an hour later to hear someone screaming and crying. I came out of the tent and saw two porters, a park ranger, and a few other people running towards us from the direction the sun was rising. I asked them what was wrong and they told me there had been an accident on the trail. <br><br>A young man from Belgium had fallen and hit his head on a rock. They said he wasn’t moving and that he had been electrocuted. My husband and I ran towards the direction they were going, along with a couple of other people. When we got to the place where the accident had occurred, I saw the man lying on the ground. He had hit his head so hard on a rock that it had cracked open. One of his shoes was still on, the other was several feet away. His legs were twisted at awkward angles, and one of his arms looked broken. <br><br>He was bleeding profusely from his head and neck, and his shirt was soaked. I could tell there was water or blood in his throat because his face was swollen and blue. I know CPR and had taken a first aid course, so I asked if I could help. No one really knew what to do, and they all seemed pretty shocked and frozen in place. The park ranger told me to call for help, which I did, but there was no cell service where we were. <br><br>The ranger then told me to try and open the man’s airway. I tried, but there was too much blood and water in his throat and it was impossible. I was pretty sure the man was dead, and that his neck had probably broken when he hit the ground. I know that when you hit your head a certain way, your neck can snap and you die instantly. Unfortunately, that is what had happened. <br><br>While all this was going on, the man’s legs were twitching. Every so often, they would stop and then start up again. I kept looking at his legs and assuming that he was still alive because of this. The ranger and I were trying to comfort the man and keep him calm, talking to him and holding his hands. <br><br>At one point, I looked over at my husband and he had wiped a tear from his eye. I asked him what was wrong and he said that he had been thinking of his younger brother, who had passed away a year earlier in a similar hiking accident. <br><br>I felt terrible for my husband, but I was also in shock. At one point, the park ranger told me to stop trying to save the man, but I continued trying to open his airway for several more minutes. Finally, I was told to stop. <br><br>The ranger and porters then used a blanket to cover the man’s body and we all started walking back towards camp. The group of us walked in silence for quite some time. Eventually, someone asked what we were going to do with the body, and we decided to keep it covered and bring it back down the mountain. We were all pretty numb, but the reality of the situation eventually hit me. The young man was dead, and I had just seen it happen.<br><br>At first, I couldn’t believe that he was really gone. The way his neck had snapped, the amount of bleeding, and the fact that his legs had stopped twitching eventually sunk in, and it hit me pretty hard. I was in a lot of shock, so it was hard to process everything. We eventually got back to camp and told everyone what had happened. A group of us then decided to stay at camp with the body, while everyone else went on to the highest point on the trail. <br><br>I was still pretty numb and felt like being alone, so my husband decided to go on to the highest point without me. He promised me he would come back and we would leave together once the group that went on had returned. <br><br>The group that stayed with me and the body ended up comforting me a lot. They were all pretty emotional too, but they were very sweet to me and helped me cope with what had happened. I sat with the body and talked to it a lot. I told it my life story, and just vented to the man. I kept expecting him to wake up and talk to me, but that never happened.<br><br>While I waited for my husband to return, I cleaned up the area a bit, picking up the man’s belongings and arranging some of the rocks in a neat pile. The sun was already pretty high in the sky, so I realized that the group that had gone on ahead had been gone for several hours. At one point, I heard someone approaching camp and thought it was my husband. I turned around and saw two porters carrying a young girl on a stretcher. <br><br>The girl had tripped and fallen, and sprained her ankle. She had been crying a lot and was in a lot of pain. The porters were pretty rough with her when they dropped her on the stretcher, and I told them to be more careful. They looked at me angrily, as if I was the one who had hurt her. They were pretty rude, but I was still in shock at the time so I just ignored them.<br><br>After they left, I felt pretty bad for the girl and I hoped she would be alright. I worried a lot about her while I waited for my husband. Eventually, he returned with the group and we left camp to head back to civilization. The man’s body was still covered with the blanket, and we carried it for several hours until we reached a point where we could take it down faster via a different route. <br><br>Once we were back on the trail, I saw a