One weekend in 1995, while rock climbing there Skilling fell 20 feet and seriously hurt his ankle. A local doctor told him that he could do nothing: the ankle was so badly mangled that Skilling needed to go to a big-city hospital for surgery. Scheduled to leave the next day on a four-day trip to Germany, Skilling bought a set of crutches and hobbled onto the plane. The surgery took place a month later; reassembling his ankle required a bone graft, two pins, and three screws. Skilling later looked on his decision as “setting an example for the organization: things need to get done.”
