Cracked right down the middle

Photo by Kateoo on Foter.com / CC BY-NC

About two or three years ago I was skiing at Sunday River with my friend George. We were on our second run of the day and we decided to head up to the terrain park to practice some freestyle tricks we had been working on. It had been very cold leading up to this day so most of the snow that had accumulated had turned into ice. We got to the terrain park and decided we were finally going to try a 360 over one of the bigger jumps, instead of the smaller ones we had already mastered the 360 on. The toughest part about learning 360’s over big jumps is that you have to learn how to spin much slower since you’re in the air for longer. Neither of us had ever attempted a trick like this over a jump this big, so we were both very nervous to say the least.

Finally we decided to rock paper scissor for who would attempt it first. I ended up losing and had to go first. After much hesitation I decided to try it. I dropped into the icy down ramp and started to pick up speed for the jump. Everything was feeling good so once I hit the base of the jump I decided to go for it. The rotation started out perfectly and I didn’t tip at all, however as I was coming towards the landing I started to notice that my spin was not rotated far enough. When I first hit the landing my skis were completely sideways which caused my edges to catch. It sent me about 20 feet down the slope where I landed directly on my shoulder on the hard packed snow and ice.

As soon as my shoulder hit the ground, I heard a loud crack. I then laid on the ground for awhile trying to collect myself and figure out what had just happened. George saw it all happen and skied down to me to check if I was okay. I then got up and started to move everything so that I could make sure I was all right. When I first got up everything felt okay and I had good movement but I thought that my shoulder area did feel a little bit off. I decided that I would ski down the rest of the way and see how I felt before I decided what I would do. As soon as I started to ski again, the adrenaline started to wear off by the minute. By the time I got to the bottom of my run the pain was almost unbearable. Soon after, George and I decided that we would go to the ski patrol building to get their input on what I should do and what could possibly have happened. So I laid down on the table and explained the pain and how it happened to one of the medics. He said from the sound of the story I might have broken my collarbone or separated my shoulder and that the best option would be to get an X-ray to see exactly what was wrong.

So my Mom picked us up and drove us all to the hospital. We got there and waited for what seemed like forever until we were finally taken in for the X-ray. The process was pretty quick and we waited again for the doctor to come in with the results. He finally came back into the room with the results. His first words were, “yup it is cracked right down the middle.” I then responded with, “uh what is cracked sir?” He showed me an X-ray where I had two collarbones where only one should have been. Luckily I did not need surgery but it was about a two month long healing process which did mean that my ski season was sadly over.

My big take away from this experience was that I should have waited to try the trick until the snow conditions weren’t so icy. As they say “patience is a virtue” and is definitely something that I was able to gain from this situation. If I would have had patience I may not have broken my collarbone and I even may have landed the trick, as well as been able to finish that whole ski season. Although in a way I have probably avoided many other crashes due to the fact that now I only try tricks in good snow conditions. This was definitely a big learning experience for me and a mistake that I will not repeat again.