She learned the hard way about hiking precautions

In the split second that she realized she was falling on a Santa Monica mountains trail, Rebekah
McNamara instantly decided to save her baby, strapped in a carrying pack on her back, and
take all of the weight on her left leg on April 24.

“My son Shane is on my back. He’s an additional 25 pounds,” Rebekah remembers. “My ankle
was already hurting. It was probably fractured. My shoes had no grip on them. That didn’t help
when it came to going downhill. It was slippery.

“It just snapped. It broke completely. The first thing I ever remember was screaming really loud.

The pain was so great. I didn’t know what to do. I was like, I just have to faint. I couldn’t breathe;
it was so painful.”

Rebekah broke her tibia and fibula and fractured her ankle. She was airlifted off the Los Leones
Trail, after her brother ran down the rest of the path to where he could pick up signal on his
phone to call 911. She submitted two hours of surgery, receiving one rod and four screws.

“The trauma nurse said I’m bionic now,” she quips.

Rebekah’s accident and her six months of arduous recovery serve as a reminder to employ safe
trekking measures in the beautiful local mountains. In Rebekah’s case, she should have done
three things:

1. Wear shoes with adequate tread, preferably hiking boots.
2. Not carry extra weight once she twisted her ankle and compromised its strength.
3. Consider fully carrying a toddler on her back.

After Rebekah had twisted her ankle, her brother Zach Scribner offered to carry the baby.

Rebekah declined because she figured a mother’s reflex would be better than an uncle’s.

Both she and Zach regret that decision now.

Her fatefall fall began as a Rebekah, her husband, her three kids, her brother, her sister-in-law
and their three kids hiked to the top for a picnic. As she headed back down at 1:30 p.m.,

Rebekah twisted her ankle about 10 minutes from the trailhead. Read the rest: how to hike safely in the Santa Monica mountains.