If
you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to serve as a horrible
warning.
--Catherine Aird
Many thanks to Heidi for contacting people with the news of my broken leg; I really didn’t feel like dealing with much of anything the first few days (other than trying not to move), but I’ll add a few details now. First, many thanks to Heidi for taking such great care of me. Among the silver linings around this “ghastly accident”* is that I have had excellent care all the way along, starting with the ski patrol guys who had to drag my sorry ass up hill a hundred yards, and who did a very smooth and gentle job with the scariest part of all: pulling off the ski boot that I was keeping closed tight for a splint. They replaced it with a surprisingly stable splint of cardboard, carpet padding, and duct tape. The ambulance with a warm blanket and a morphine shot is about the best ride anyone could want, and the hospital was real quick about getting me x-rayed and keeping up the pain meds. Surgery came soon enough, felt like a deep sleep, and even though the leg still feels pretty vulnerable, I trust this is the best treatment available, and feel confident in a good recovery. Of course, beyond all the technology and teamwork that has gone into fixing me up, the best nurse of all has been Heidi, who has done more than I could ever hope for from anyone, building a big sturdy new bed, staying in the hospital helping me ask the right questions, cooking, cleaning, re-arranging the furniture, shopping for any possible commodity that could add to my comfort, setting everything within reach, and just generally being there to fetch and do all the things that I can’t. This is the kind of care for which I can not express enough appreciation; I only hope that I can respond with as much devotion along with my complete and utter dependence.
Other Silver Linings:
*- sympathy note from the stylish and worldly Professor Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini containing the words “ghastly accident”
- was finally able to ski three and a half days at our local
- had the special opportunity to hear the unique sound of a bone snapping.
- now have an excuse to call in sick and sit around the house taking naps and narcotics.
- will have more time to play guitar badly with no one around.
- will finally have time to sort those mixed up nuts bolts screws & nails- woohoo!
- Heidi says if I’m good she’ll let me try to do the taxes all by myself this year.
- there’s a pile of magazines that’s been waiting for me. Let’s hope I can read them before they fall on me.
- plenty of other sit-down projects: drawing plans for house addition, sorting photos, sorting sand collection, sorting sand particles with microscope.
- will really enjoy our new dvd player and tivo
- it’s just the leg; nothing else hurts
Current conditions-
Week1: I have 17 metal staples holding a few small incisions together. There is bruising and swelling that mostly hurts when I stand up to get around on crutches as the fluid pools down there (I should have a wheelchair soon so I can move stuff around the house and keep the leg elevated). There is no cast, just the internal titanium nail and pins, which might be adjusted or replaced in more surgery to come. I guess a cast would promote infection, would complicate the swelling, might encourage the harmful delusion that I could put weight on it, and would itch like hell. Having it out in the open makes it easy to scratch and move and look at, but does come with an appropriate sense of vulnerability. I can sometimes feel the pieces of fibula bumping and grinding against each other when I move the leg (hey doc it hurts when I do this).
I was telling the doctor I wasn’t sure how far I could stretch my toes, bend my knee, etc, and he looked me right in the eye and said: “You have no limitations” (!) so it looks like I’ll be able to play the piano after all. The range of motion in ankle and knee is getting better daily, and I should be breaking records any time from now. Meanwhile I will continue taking my Oxycodone every four hours.
Week 2: swelling going down, leaving a bump on the shin. Bruising disappearing. Staples removed.
Week 3: comfortable upright on crutches for extended periods. Weaning off the pain meds soon.
After 6 weeks will start putting weight on it, walking.
I have heard a few people’s reactions along the lines of how dangerous skiing is, and I think that would be a really unfortunate lesson to take away. So I’ll try to come up with a few other lessons, as I try to explain what happened. I hope to give the impression that skiing is at least as safe as you want it to be (though this might say something else about how safe I want it to be).
I will have to admit up front, however, that in the 650 page text, “Review of Gross Anatomy” (Pansky), on the one page devoted to bones of the lower leg, among a list of possible injuries, the only comment on spiral fractures is that “spiral fractures of the tibia are caused by severe torsion in skiing”. While I do try to imagine other ways this could happen, all I can picture is Bruce Lee, grabbing my foot, crooning like some kind of cat-monkey, and with a sudden twist >swish-swish >}pop{< wauughh!< you can see in his eyes he’s ready for the next guy.
Although Heidi mentioned that it took a few minutes for someone to find me in a less traveled area, I must clarify that this was by no means a remote area. It was in full view of the main road and the ski lodge, and was within a small triangle formed by the main chairlift, the beginners’ chairlift, and the beginners’ rope tow. It was in an area which was leveling out at the bottom of the main slope, and had it been groomed, would have been the bunny slope. And there I was, screaming for help. A lesser man might have died of embarrassment.
I suppose it was less traveled because most experts were seeking steeper powder higher up and in the trees, and most beginners were going for the groomed slopes off the main lift. Apart from this large area of deeper snow, the easier groomed options from the beginners lift were really limited. So that left lots of room to play in what seemed like a perfect place for me to practice turning in deeper snow, which is a really different skill than skiing on packed or groomed surfaces, mainly because one can’t slide/skid the turns. It requires carving through more gradual turns, with better balance and more subtle weight shift to keep from tripping on skis getting caught in the snow.
This was a wide open area, gently
sloping enough to get the needed momentum, but not so steep as to push me back
into my usual slow traversing turns. The snow was a little uneven, having some
tracks already carved into it, but still enough untouched areas to try new
turns. The powder was a little on the heavy side, and not-quite-crusted-but-bound-together-enough-to-keep-from-blowing-away
(which the Eskimos know as tibifibufuk).
I had skied a bit of shallow powder in previous years and I had practiced about ten runs in this same patch of deep snow earlier in the week (Monday 2/2), sometimes falling easily into the nice fluffy powder, and sometimes getting through it with a few awkward, tentative turns, but I still hadn’t quite got the hang of it. By Friday (2/6), the older slightly crusted & tracked powder had now been covered over by 8 inches of fresh snow, which might have made it easier by evening out the surface a little, but might have hidden a few ruts or holes made by some idiot who kept falling down here earlier in the week.
I had just skimmed through a few ski books the night before to review some pointers on how to enjoy the powder. I had spent the first six runs warming up on steeper but easier slopes and practicing some of the powder skills like keeping both skis closer together, and focusing on the weight shift in more linked, rhythmic turns. I hadn’t yet tried one of the most concise tips, which was to try skiing with boots loosened so as to have to really develop balance. Maybe that little exercise would have made a difference.
This particular morning I had switched to my older, longer skis, figuring they might float me through the powder a little better. Though I had been doing pretty well practicing, I was finding that trying newer skills with longer skis was a little awkward (after skiing my first 3 days of the season on shorter skis the previous weekend), and I had been thinking about going in soon to change back to the shorter ones, but figured I should try the long ones in the powder for a couple runs just to see if there was much of a difference. Unfortunately, I only got one try, which did seem to be going pretty well for the first few turns, but suddenly everything changed.
It’s possible that my bindings were old and faulty, and that they should have released before snapping my leg, but then again the right ski did come off when it got pulled. I think the left binding might have been able to release except that the boot itself was probably wedged into the ground or packed snow, so it couldn’t really pull away from the ski enough to make the binding release. My friend X has pointed out that bone-breakers do commonly occur on bunny slopes in deep, heavy snow because the low speeds lead to a slow twist rather than the quick wrench needed for the binding to release. Nonetheless, one lesson here is that I probably should have loosened my bindings to release more easily while practicing on terrain which in effect made me a beginner again.
I think this is what I told the ski patrol when they were jotting down my personal information, and came up with the unexpected question, ‘how could you have prevented this from happening?’ To sum up, maybe adjust the bindings to release more easily, stick with the shorter skis, warm up with a little more practice, and maybe even take a lesson. It’s hard to say, though, whether any of that would have helped. Maybe the terrain was more cruddy and irregular under the new snow than I thought. The bottom line is I got a little off balance and caught an edge, which has happened many times before and usually results in a soft harmless tumble. Seems like this time I just got some peculiar luck.
I guess none of that makes skiing seem any safer, except that I was pushing my limits and trying out some new stuff that is, for me, the hardest to grasp. There’s always some fun in the easier stuff too, and maybe I’ll stick with that for a while next season.
Whoops, forgot to tell you how I fell.
Here it is.
Fall of the day:
Bunny Yard Sale with a Twist
This is a complex, advanced ski fall, which requires a few specific conditions. If well placed it has merit as a public spectacle, especially if you can drop it on a bunny slope. Since the Twist requires deeper snow, however, you may have to settle for an untracked area near a beginners’ slope. You may find untouched snow near the bottom where if you skied down you’d have to trudge back up hill to the lift- all the better. If the rescue squad has to spend a lot of time dragging you back up hill, there will be more time to draw spectators.
As this is a velocity assisted fall, gravity alone won’t carry you through; this requires some lead-in and some commitment.
Remember, the final Twist should result in a spiral fracture, so your ability to practice more falls in the following weeks may be limited to some basics such as falling out of bed, splashing down in the bathtub, or slipping a crutch.* You might also ask yourself: is your insurance up to date? Can you afford to work from home for a few months? Is there anything else you had planned this season? If the answer to these questions is ‘yes, yes, and no’, or ‘who cares’, or ‘whatever’, then read on.
The site I’ve selected for
demonstrating the Bunny Yard Sale with a Twist is
Have a look around, warm up with a few quick runs, and take the black diamond run that comes down along the lift line. Ham it up a little so you can catch the attention of a few people just getting on the lift who’ll still be able to see you when you fall. Enjoy hopping down through the bumps as you descend the last shoulder, and start working your way to the right to get above the powder.
Pick a route in the open just outside the glade, so you’ll have more freedom to pick your spot, and will be more visible. Once you’re in the powder, you can carve a few neat turns, and let go to pick up a little momentum, to about 15-20mph, a good cruising speed.
This is the moment to initiate your fall. You may have second thoughts at this point. Perhaps you have just remembered a date with the lovely ski instructor. Perhaps you have suddenly invented a lucrative scheme to remove yourself from debt, but it involves being able to walk in the next few weeks.
No matter, if you decide that you’re just not up to this fall, there are a few exit strategies. One option, of course, is simply not to fall at all, just to ski on down to the lift and ride back up with the other ordinary people. Alternatively, if you should decide not to completely waste the opportunity, several other falls would do nicely, such as a back sit, a single or double somersault (skiers may refer to this as the “vertical plane turn”- if finished still upright and skiing- but this, of course, is not a true fall), or the popular and dramatic face plant. I recommend the face plant, as it has a better chance of sending up a big spray of powder, which will help to draw enough attention for a worthwhile public spectacle. As soon as you have enough momentum for a big splash, keep your weight centered forward as your skis split, and remember to spread your arms out wide and arch your back.
If, however, you feel you have had enough of such simple stunts, and are still committed to making the most of this situation with something truly extraordinary, then continue boldly to read.
You’ve got some velocity now and you’re ready to begin. Keeping both skis weighted, let your right ski drift out a little until the snow catches it like peeling a mattress off a minivan on the highway. This is where you’ve got to be careful to keep riding the left ski downhill; if you let the left ski catch too, you’ll be headed for an off center face plant or a barrel roll. Try to stay centered over the left ski, but let the drag on the right ski act like an anchor to spin your right leg and shoulder back until the binding releases. At this point in the crucial wind-up you’ll be gliding downhill sideways like a surfer or snowboarder: you should be able to turn your head 180 degrees opposite your direction of travel, so for a second you can face up hill to watch your right ski clattering off into a snow bank (there’s the yard sale- fling your poles any time), yet you’ll still be riding the left ski straight down hill.
The rest is so simple it runs itself, like a perfect golf swing. Your weighted left ski will naturally begin to turn gradually and then more sharply to the right. At the same time the tension and momentum of your sprung body is winding back down to the left, carried by the pendulous momentum of your right boot swinging back around to stride downhill. Notice your upper body and right leg crossing over the ski, and just let it keep going. When you hear that pop, you’ll know you’ve nailed it. All that’s left is a little follow-through. Let the arms and right leg continue circling left until they touch down into the slope, and roll over onto your right shoulder.
When the left leg finally follows around with the weight of the ski on it, it’s likely to bend a little, so when it lands, you may want to straighten it back out again, but if you can stand it, a certain impossible angle does a lot to get people’s attention. No one ever seems to believe you when you say you broke it, they’ve all got to see for themselves. You may choose to try to maintain consciousness, however, and for that, the ski boot makes a great splint.
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* On the other hand, a few special opportunities for falls may present themselves, e.g. flopping off the x-ray table when the technician turns his back. Falling out of the ambulance is a golden opportunity, especially on a mountain road, but unfortunately I haven’t enough space to cover that topic adequately. If you are lucky enough to get a helicopter ride—well, you may have to make some quick decisions; look for thick foliage, deep snow, and a steep slope.