1 . Colorado’s grey peak rises 14,278 feet above sea level, high enough that trees can’t grow toward the top. It was in this unforgiving land of the mountain that Jane was ________ enough to break her left knee.

It was August 2018, and Jane, 56, was on her way back ________ the path with three friends. A storm was on the way, and they were ________ to get off the mountain. When they ________ a rocky drop of a couple of feet, Jane decided that instead of slipping down—the safe way to go—she would leap. She ________ on her left leg.

Then she heard the crack.

Every step after that was great ________. Before long, she had to stop. As one friend ran down to get ________, a number of other hikers, all strangers, attempted to help Jane down the narrow path by walking on either side of her to ________ her weight, but that proved slow and ________. One man “was so close to the edge I could see rocks ________ down from where he stepped on them,” Jane says.

________, one hiker, Matt, asked her, “How do you feel about a fireman’s carry?” ________ she knew it, he had lifted her over his shoulder. “Now, I’m not ________,” says Jane, a former college basketball star. Matt ________ couldn’t carry her all the way down by himself. So six hikers and one of her friends ________ carrying her while she tried to make light of a difficult ________: “I told them I wanted to meet a lot of guys, ________ this isn’t the way I wanted to do it.” Three hours later, this human conveyor belt finally met the medics (医学工作者), who took Jane to the hospital ________.

She has mostly recovered from her ill-fated ________, but knows she’ll never shake one thing from that day: the memory of the band of strangers who came to her ________. “I’m still in awe.”