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As he tumbled "like a rag doll" about 170m down a South Island mountain, Steffen Poepjes was sure he was either going to end up dead or paralysed.
The fact the Auckland student survived, with few serious injuries, had rescuers and the mountaineers calling him incredibly lucky.
"There's
been a few deaths up there before, and I think I was being looked after by an angel or something, mate," the Papatoetoe 20-year-old told the Herald from his hospital bed.
Bloodied and bruised after coming to a stop, Mr Poepjes wiggled his toes and was flooded with relief that he still had movement.
"Firstly, I was like 'has this really happened?' Then I started spitting blood out of my mouth and felt the pain, and was like 'yeah, it has really happened'."
His friend and fellow climber, Cameron Walker, 23, got to him minutes later and checked him out, before making a two-hour trek to get help.
"He definitely saved my life. I couldn't thank him enough."
The pair had gone to the South Island and tackled the 1967m Mount Philistine because it wasn't considered too "technically difficult".
They made their way up the mountain on Tuesday morning relatively safely.
But as they started to descend, just after 11am, they found the going more difficult when negotiating the "tricky" Warnocks Bluff section.
"The snow was quite slushy, so I dug my crampons in and obviously they didn't hold ... and yeah, started falling," Mr Poepjes said.
"I just went through the rocks and the tussock. I remember falling off the first bluff and hitting the ground, and just going 'oh, that's definitely something broken there'."
The next bluff he fell over was a much bigger drop.
"I remember just free-falling through the air, waiting for the impact of the fall. I thought I was going to die."
At the bottom of this bluff he slid for about 100m, but couldn't remember much because he was too dazed.
He does recall Mr Walker calling out to him from above, but was too sore to respond.
Mr Walker had just done a first-aid course and did what he could to get his friend into a comfortable position, digging out a seat in the snow and making a pillow for his head.
During the two-hour wait for rescue Mr Poepjes kept falling asleep and forced himself to wake again.
A helicopter lifted him out and he was flown to Christchurch Hospital, where he was found to have a broken rib and extensive bruising to his kidneys and other parts of his body.
Mr Walker said the sight of his friend tumbling down the mountain initially caused him to panic.
It was a huge relief to see he was not as badly hurt as he'd feared.
Rescuer Hamish Reid said Mr Poepjes was very lucky, but his helmet and backpack would have shielded him from more serious injury.
Two people have died near where Mr Poepjes plunged, in 2001 and 2002.
Mr Poepjes hopes to leave hospital today, and return to Auckland before starting a new job.
But he wants more adventures.
"When you fall off a mountain, you get back on."
