The guy who almost fell off a cliff

So we're hiking this trail along the Oregon coast. When we set off, I decide my new thing is going to be to document a "Fern Life List" because Helen has a Bird Life List and I'm intrigued by the list but not by the birds. So I begin to take photos of all the ferns I see. 

I will do this until I have seen all the ferns in the world!!!

Some Ferns

Some more ferns
which at a certain point
I realize are the same kind of ferns.

My full attention on ferns lasts until we hit the views of the coast, which are undeniably spectacular!

I also realize we are very high up and the trail edges a cliff that is a straight shot into the sea:

Approximately right then, some guy hiking the opposite direction with his wife/girlfriend does a weird backward step just as he comes abreast of us and he topples off the side of the precipice. He falls backwards and luckily gets tangled up in a bush and therefore does not immediately plunge to his death.

Time halts as we all stand there staring at the soles of his boots and the flailing ends of his hiking poles which he continues to clutch despite it being vanishingly unlikely there's anything skyward to poke which is going to fix his predicament.

The guy's wife/girlfriend btw is doing and saying nothing this whole time. She's just there, casually frozen stiff.

Matt and Tom help the guy up. Or mostly up. The wife/girlfriend continues to not move.

When the guy is deemed back up, or at least up enough that he assures Tom and Matt he's all good .... we go on our way.

The wife/girlfriend has not uttered a word or offered any assistance of any kind. At some point it had become aggressively notable.