Look what I get for suggesting such a thread.
Landed switch off a small pop at Ski Bowl Tuesday night, hit something weird under the snow (probably a rock), which flipped me and I started to tomohawk down a freshly filled bowl. My leg found the only rock in the field however, and it was a decidedly sharp one hanging out just under the snow.
I hit it on my first or second flip, and heard a huge *pop*. Even though I've never broken a bone before or have had any type of serious trauma injury, I knew instantly what happened. When I slid to a stop I already had both hands around my leg trying to keep my quad muscles from spasming and sliding the two pieces of bone deeper past the break.
It was a pretty high break, and the impact came pretty solidly from the side, so there are relatively few pieces of bone that will have to float and fuse. Long vertical rod from the top of the femur straight down to the knee, bunch of screws to secure it and I should be able to ski again.
The bruise was both from the rock and the hematoma caused by the bone ends slicing through muscle in my leg while I was still tumbling. I cant show you the other side because it has my nuts in the shot, but it wraps around the back of my quad, so thats a 3/4th wrap bruise going there.
Anyways, on crutches today, no cast, and I'm out of the hospital tomorrow... which sorta seems crazy, but I'm glad to be out of this hospital gown. I really hope I didnt traumatize anyone on the upper bowl lift from the screaming, but trust me, the pain warranted those noises. If anything, it was an eye opener for me of how quickly things can go really really wrong. I was visible from the lift, and it still took patrol 15 minutes to find me (which was officially the longest 15 minutes in my life) and then about 2 hours to get into the sled and down to the base. We had to go through about 100 meters of foot and a half fresh to get onto a run, and I'm lucky the terrain was pretty gentle. Had I been out even further off a run, would have taken twice as long, and I was already hypothermic when I reached the ambulence. If I had been out of bounds or even in slackcountry... I could have died, no doubt in my mind.
You dont know where things will go wrong, and freak accidents can occur even in the most docile of places (1-4 foot cliff band you're sessioning in a foot of fresh with your good friends, just for example). Skiing is inherently risky. Read these stories and know that if you ski the way we do, even if you're careful to a T, it can still happen.
And even though I'm laying here with pins in my leg and an IV in the back of my hand, its worth it, I'll be back on skis soon.
