Skiing injuries and deaths

**minddoc** · 08-12-2007, 03:56 PM

A few quick questions for those of you who ski for a living, have skied daily for more then 4 seasons, and those who ski a minimum of twice a week.

**Ville** · 08-12-2007, 04:30 PM

Don't know do I qualify to job/daily group, about 120-140 days per season. I have broken my spine once and torn my ACL. ACL happened in end of Aprill, so skiing season was pretty much done anyway. I had compression fracture in my spine and one piece of spine little bit dislocated about 7 years ago. I got 2cm shorter in that accident. Too much speed to kicker... I was off the skis about one year for that. Not too much jumping and hucking after that. Knee is in pretty good shape now, so is my back.

**minddoc** · 08-12-2007, 04:54 PM

Originally Posted by Ville

Don't know do I qualify to job/daily group, about 120-140 days per season. I have broken my spine once and torn my ACL. ACL happened in end of Aprill, so skiing season was pretty much done anyway. I had compression fracture in my spine and one piece of spine little bit dislocated about 7 years ago. I got 2cm shorter in that accident. Too much speed to kicker... I was off the skis about one year for that. Not too much jumping and hucking after that. Knee is in pretty good shape now, so is my back.

Yes you definitely qualify for daily. Thanks for your comments.
I did a little study with climbers and risk; I am becoming more interested in skiers, as the sport at a surface level appears safer then climbing. There seems to be more deaths in climbing yet skiers seem to have more serious injuries then climbers and continue to ski and re-injure themselves. I think climbers and skiers are of like mind, but it seems like skiers are a bit more impulsive (maybe?).

**Kevo** · 08-12-2007, 05:02 PM

Climbing is different because the participant must put themselves into the risk zone all on their own. They cannot use gravity to simply step off and go, so i think that it takes more commitment to seriously put yourself at risk.

I have had a friend die, and I have been hospitalized overnight. I ski a little more than twice a week.

**lifts4turns** · 08-12-2007, 05:06 PM

Does falling off a chair lift as a kid count as ski related?

**sftc** · 08-12-2007, 05:26 PM

Originally Posted by minddoc

...There seems to be more deaths in climbing yet skiers seem to have more serious injuries then climbers and continue to ski and re-injure themselves. I think climbers and skiers are of like mind, but it seems like skiers are a bit more impulsive (maybe?).

Well, when people fuck up really bad while climbing they are probably more likely to die just because of the basic mechanism of the injury- falling from much more then 10 feet onto a hard surface. Other much more common climbing injuries are torn ligaments, muscles and tendons and other injuries that aren't usually considered to be "serious" injuries.
On the other hand, high performance skiers tend to push it really hard and every turn could potentially lead to serious injury or even death, depending on the terrain. So a good skier risks his ass hundreds of times a day, while most sport climbers only take a few potentially deadly falls each day, and climbers almost always have decent protection to save them from taking a big fall.
Also, I think skiers tend to blame other factors for their injuries- crappy snow, bad light, lousy gear, etc.- so sometimes they don't feel it is all their fault, while climbers get hurt when they, or their partner, makes a big recognizable mistake. So skiers tend to get back after it at the same level as before after a serious injury thinking they have learned their lesson while I think climbers tend to step back and not push it as hard after an accident.

**KungFu Eddie** · 08-12-2007, 06:15 PM

In our lift crew last season we had; two season ending tib-fib breaks (one a code yellow compound from crashing into a perm-fence), a broken collar bone, two broken wrists (one which required pins and screws and came with broken ribs) one girls had to leave with a nagging back injury from some gaper crshing into her, numerous tweaked knees and a concusion. Somehow I dodged the bullet, the worst I got was some gnarly shin bang and some pulled muscles.