INDEX — Henry “Hank” Purchase is an adventurer.
Rebecca Grant and Brett Purchase love the outdoors. When they had a son, they knew they’d love and accept any child they had. But it would be really nice if he shared their interests.
“And we just like won the baby lottery,” Grant said in an interview Friday morning.
Hank, 5, lifts weights with his mom. He goes on runs with her. He does jiu-jitsu “with an intensity that is so silly.” She called him the most “adaptable” and “motivated” child. Previous reports indicated Hank was 6.
Grant and her son, whose homebase is in Seattle, had been traveling around in a camper going to different climbing crags over the last year.
The weather was sometimes horrendous. But when she offered to go back to Seattle, he responded that he wanted to keep adventuring.
Hank climbed Mount Si after seeing it while driving back west from Idaho. He’d get tired and Grant would offer to turn around. But he wanted to go to the top.
“It’s not easy and the Haystack is pretty scary,” Grant said. “I can’t tell you the surprise on the people’s faces when we were up there. I’m so proud of him and I feel so lucky that I’ve gotten to have this time with him.”
The Index Town Wall, on the north side of the Skykomish River, was one of their favorite climbing spots. The family had gone there a week earlier. Some small pebbles, about the size of marbles, came loose while people climbed. So they decided to go to another spot that day.
Hank and his mother went back Sunday. Just after 5 p.m., a climber at a lower part of the wall kicked a rock loose, Snohomish County Fire District 26 Chief Eric Andrews said. The rock fell and hit Hank below.
Grant screamed for someone to call 911.
“I can’t imagine anyone within a mile couldn’t hear me,” she said.
Hank stopped breathing by the time he got to the ambulance, Grant said. She thought he was dead.
When people politely ask Grant how she’s doing, she responds “it’s not the worst day of my life.”
“In my head, I secretly say to myself because Sunday was the worst day of my life,” she said.
Hank was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, and fellow climbers drove Grant there from Index. This was just one example of the kindness the climbing community has shown her family this week.
In the days since the incident, more than 700 people have contributed to a GoFundMe set up by the family to help pay for medical expenses, as of Friday afternoon. The fundraiser had brought in more than $56,000. Grant said the helicopter to transport her son would cost $40,000 alone.
“I feel so lucky that these are the people that are loving me,” she said.
Grant and Brett Purchase have been keeping an online journal since Hank was hospitalized to keep people updated on his condition.
He had surgery Tuesday to remove a part of his skull the size of a hand’s palm to relieve swelling in his brain.
After the surgery, his mother posted “we’re so relieved!!”
“Gosh Hank is looking so much better since surgery, even though part of his skull has been taken away!” she wrote in her next update. “He’s cozied up with his toy puppy Cody, ready for a quiet night.”
Hank coughed, gagged, clenched his fist and moved his legs in response to nurses’ attempts to clear his airways Wednesday. “Great signs,” his mother wrote.
Grant said Friday morning she’s not ready to think too deeply about what the future holds. Right now, her goals are to get four hours of sleep per day, eat three meals and brush her teeth.
“We’re going to get what we get and we’re going to deal with it,” she said.
Forever the outdoorswoman, she calls the experience “pain mountain.”
“I get to climb this incredible, challenging peak and it’s going to take a long time,” she said.
Jake Goldstein-Street: 425-339-3439; jake.goldstein-street@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @GoldsteinStreet.
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