Heart Pounding: See the Last-Second Rescue of an Ice Climber From a Near-Fatal Fall

While only a few details of the following video are known, we do know this much: a) the man is extremely lucky his fellow climbers come to his rescue and b) people do really, really astronomically stupid things (like ice climbing).

The problem begins when, near the summit of the climb, the melting ice starts to give way. This means that the climber has nothing to stick his picks into, which, of course, means he has nothing to hold onto. Luckily, his fellow climbers throw him a line, he attaches it to his belt, and (15 seconds later) the ice he's standing on crumbles away.

“Although it's not entirely clear where the video was shot, it is called ‘Ice Climbing Kennedy Gully’ and Kennedy's Gully is a section of the Ouray Ice Park in Colorado,” the Huffington Post reports. “According to PlanetMountain.com, the fall the climber would have faced was at least 50 meters below him.”

50 meters translates into 160 feet -- a fall that could have proven fatal.

"Epic," the relieved climber says, "I owe you all some drinks now."

"Come and rest," one of his rescuers says. "I still got you. It's okay. There's water right there. Take a deep breath when you get here."

While we are extremely thankful this video has a happy ending, we have two massive, burning questions:

1) Why, why, why would anyone ever do this? Now we enjoy the outdoors as much as the next guy but -- come on! -- what would possess someone to look at a mountain covered in ice and say “You know what? I’m going to climb that thing for fun! What could possibly go wrong?”

2) If you're faced with a potential life-or-death situation, why would you film it on your phone and not do more to help out?

This story has been updated.