I broke myself today.

[MikeC]

At the very beginning of my third run, my ski went under a branch laying horizontally about 4" below the surface of the powder. My ski and boot stopped cold, so I flew forward and landed on a very big boulder that was also covered by 4" of fluffy powder. The powder did nothing to break the fall.

I landed on my right shoulder and head. I was wearing my helmet, and it has a nice ding on the right side. My shoulder hurt, so I sit up and rotated it. I felt it move around in the socket and almost instinctively I rotated it out and back and it reseated into the socket. Hop on the sled, ski patrol brings me down, off to the hospital I go.

I have a broken clavicle and a broken scapula. Neither looks good, but neither required reduction. I also have some ligament damage from the shoulder separation, and that's actually what hurts the most. Exquisite pain.

I could very well lose some mobility in my right shoulder when all is said and done, but I'm seeing an orthopedist next weekend and will specifically ask what I need to do to maintain maximum range of motion in my right shoulder.

Good thing you wear a helmet, otherwise you might be in the ICU with little chance of doing anything in the future. Good luck on the recovery.



Remember Sonny Bono.....

 

[FreeFloat]

Good thing you wear a helmet, otherwise you might be in the ICU with little chance of doing anything in the future. Good luck on the recovery.



Remember Sonny Bono.....

I'll second that!

Best of luck in your recovery Jon! Take it slowly, you'll need that shoulder to hike your gear to and from the water.

 

[ScubaFreak]

Oh yeah- As a snowboarder- those button lifts (as I know em) are a right pain in the a$$!!! And as a result have been an on slope entertainer from time to time

Dude- really sorry to hear about your fall, but may I say, as a muscle rehab type person, please please please do more than just physical therapy. The fact that you broke your scapula (although i'd have to see the x-ray to be sure) is gonna interfere with a lot of shoulder muscles (as u already know). But Physio/Physical Therapy will only strengthen those muscles to increase and re-introduce full range of motion. But what also needs to be done is actual physical manipulation of the muscles. Deep tissue Massage, Muscle energy techniques and especially Soft Tissue release techniques - where the scar tissue on muscle is actually broken down to help with Range of Motion. Obviously this cant be done until u are essentially pain free and out of slings etc. Bummer bout your clavicle too- but it's the most commonly broken bones in the body as its the softest and the last one to fully harden (doesn't stop till about 21 or 22!) So once that sets in the right position- you wont have too much hassle with it!

But keep it in mind dude- and If you have any questions, drop me a PM. I'm sure its easier to answer questions then ramble pointlessly therefore hijacking your post

Take it easy,

SF

 

[XJae]

Jon, Sorry to hear about your accident.
Hope you heal quickly. We have a lot of
wrecks to hit this year. [at least it's Feb]
Feel better.

 

[RonFrank]

I don't ski. In the ten years I've been here, there has never been a year when I could not find a powder day at least a few times a year.

When you live here, you just don't ski when the sking is bad

The runs I enjoy most have no snowmaking. They just don't bother attempting to blow snow on the higher/steeper runs. There is either enough snow to ski, or not. Snowmaking is for getting bottom of the mountain runs open before Thanksgiving (read tourist bucks).

I do have some Rock skis for those early season or late season days....

Ron

Sure, that's this ski season!

I've skied in Colorado when there was so little snow, they had to spread straw so you could get near the chairlifts.

I think that was the year they decided they needed to install snowmaking in Colorado after all... early '80s...

Maybe it'll be our turn for good snow next year here in Europe... certainly not this year. *sigh* Brand-new skis for Christmas, too. *sigh*

Get better, Jonnythan!

(A detachable poma??? That's why they had/have those things on reels. How fast does that sucker go? And what happens if you catch an edge on the way up and fall?)

--Marek

 

[Marek K]

I don't ski. In the ten years I've been here, there has never been a year when I could not find a powder day at least a few times a year.

When you live here, you just don't ski when the sking is bad

The runs I enjoy most have no snowmaking. They just don't bother attempting to blow snow on the higher/steeper runs. There is either enough snow to ski, or not. Snowmaking is for getting bottom of the mountain runs open before Thanksgiving (read tourist bucks).

I do have some Rock skis for those early season or late season days....

Ron

Hey, this isn't hijacking the thread too badly!! Besides, that's how a conversation goes.

Whew! For a minute there, Ron, I thought you were saying that you don't ski.

Come to think of it, I think the straw was there Thanksgiving-ish that year. I was living in Colorado Springs at the time. I disagree -- you go skiing whether the the snow is good or not! Besides -- in Colorado, when is the snow not good? Other than lack of it...

OK, OK... Fresh powder is great, when you can still find it these days. But good packed powder is still good.

We were up at Hochgurgl in the Austrian Alps over Christmas. Hotel was at about 2,200 meters... about 7,000 feet, above timberline and quite high for the Alps. I thought that would be pretty snow-safe.

But there was still only about a half-meter of natural snow. They were snowmaking, and there would have been very little skiable terrain without that. But there were still a lot of rocks. Snow started out very nice, but was getting really icy by the end of the week. OK, not East Coast boilerplate... but pretty hard. And our ski bases were really gouged up at the end of the week.

I wouldn't even wish that on rock skis.

Besides, these days the technology is changing so fast -- and I keep skis for so long -- that it'd be tough to go back to an old pair.

Fortunately, these days, ski shops can overhaul ski bases so they're literally good as new overnight. If only the dollar-Euro exchange rate weren't so pitiful!! For normal damage, I've got a ski vise in the garage and do my own P-texing.

But the weather was beautiful. And, yes... even a bad (rocky) day of skiing is better than... well, you know...

You still doing OK, jonnythan?

--Marek