Dean gritted his teeth and dropped once more, just as a block of frozen mass as large as his head struck a glancing blow to his already aching shoulder. Shipton swore and began to fumble with his line to rappel again, down to the now injured and trapped form hovering below him. As he was about to drop, Dean saw Shipton's half-severed line begin to part!
"Don't," he screamed at Shipton, "the line's been cut!" But his cry came an instant too late as Shipton plummeted past him, his ice ax swinging in a rip across Dean's calf as he plummeted backward into space, and down to the rocks and churning river below. Dean momentarily opened his eyes to the swaying end of the cut line across from him. He couldn't bring himself to look down before a wave of dizziness overtook him.
Dean vaguely remembered the eternity before voices above called his name and rescuers gracefully dropped down next to him. There was a sense of cold and the ooze of blood filling his boot, and a reeling wave of lightheadedness, but little pain. Unconsciousness must have paid its call before hands secured him and lowered him to the waiting rescuers below. He recalled none of this, nor his damaged body being placed on a litter at the narrow edge of the cascading water and lifted upward from the depth of the inaccessible gorge to the penstock path above. The only sound he remembered was ambulance siren on its long journey to the Montrose hospital.