Worst injury on the slopes?

Mine was tearing several intercostal muscles in Whistler three years ago. Was having a perfectly fine run down one of the bowls when I just hit a soft spot, dropped 6 inches or so, my skis just stuck and I went slamming into the ground. I told the doctor for something so small it was one of the most excruciating feelings I've ever had since every time I took a breath it felt like someone was punching me in the gut. More than dislocating my knee and way more than popping my shoulder out of joint which I thought was bad - which ironically happened biking down the ski slopes in the summer. Thankfully she loaded me up on anti-inflamitories and Tylenol w/ codeine and I was back out two days later for short spurts.

Surely someone here has had a few spectacular crashes.

A snowboarder ran into me up at Beech Mtn,nc & I broke a rib. Had many wild & Narly wrecks as a youngster.. too many to describe! Accidents are part of my history..been taken to shock trama a couple of times in off slope activities.....I try to ski in control nowadays!

Worst for me was similar to the one you had dcmidnight. I was skiing at mammoth, ca and hit a real soft patch at speed and went flying. Tumbled for a while and lost all my equipment. Luckily a patroller saw it all happen and was there very quickly. My knee hurt really bad so i rode down in one of those toboggans behind the patroller. The medics at the mnt said i seemed alright and that i just needed to ice it up a bit but after a week or so it was still twice the normal size so i went to an orthopedic surgeon and after an MRI discovered i had badly stressed my ACL and MCL and fractured my tibia. I wore a brace for a few months and was all better in time for the following season. Only good part was that it was in early april on the last run of my last ski day of the season... so no on-snow time wasted!

I once fell off a bar stool in the ski lodge, knocked into a very pretty snow bunny and seriously damaged my ego. Too many Yuengling drafts!!

Foggy goggle??

... oh yeah - so i was at ski liberty at the top of eastwind where the bumps had grown up pretty deep.

scoped a zipper line and just as i was going to wail on it i saw my wed. nite gate training coach larry riding up the lift. so i am sooooooo good i shout "larry check this out!!!!" and i dive in.

butter the first bump
scoop and butter the second
slam on the third

with snow going down my ski pants and up my shirt sliding backward i self-arrest under the lift.


the damage to my ego still takes its toll to this day.

Well, at the Pond Skim at 7 springs this past year, me and my buddy were the ones on the tandem ski. So after being half naked on the front with a few beers in me, we went down and made it across the first pond and skidded are bare skin across the spring slush. Then he back-flipped me into the pond that was freezing cold. IF I had not been drunk, my ego would have been crushed from being in red stripper boxers and having a cooled down, well, I'm a guy and you get the picture.

Actual injury: After the pond skim and after I did some intense spring skiing at Tahoe, I was back in PA for the springs Mashed Potatoe freestyle comp. The feature at the bottom of the hill was a quarterpipe and I was doing flares and flare-to-stall on it all day and some switch hits. For my last hit, I wanted to try a double-back-flip for the first time. I went higher on the hill and got more speed from a tuck. As I got to the quarterpipe, I readied myself for a rotation I hadn't done since a trampoline 5 or 6 years ago. Right before I got to the top of the quarterpipe, I threw it all. Well, I hit my entire back and neck against the wall, continued flipping and fell onto the deck. I got up after reorientating myself and dropped into the quarterpipe and went to the side to rest. Within a few minutes I couldn't turn my torso or bend it. I went to the Dr. and was sent for X-rays of everything. Sure enough, my friend was taking my X-rays and talking to me the whole time in the hospital. I was expected to have compression fractures in the greater 2/3s of my spine, but I got really lucky and was told I had a lot of back muscle that was thick enough and strong enough to protect my spine and just was very, very strained.

Other than lots of bruised ego, the worst fall I took was in a white-out at Snowbird in 1982. I was skiing away from the Tram along a traverse and took a nasty forward fall after hitting a rut that I could not see. I fell on my upper arm/shoulder hard. No damage (nothing broken at least) but it still hurts till this day if I twist it right.

Not to be morbid but a guy from the neighborhood I grew up in who was a good friend of my brother, was killed skiing. To this day I am unclear of the exact circumstances. It happened around 1985-86 at one of the Virginia resorts. He hit a tree and suffered a separation of the aorta from the heart.

In the far depths of dcski history, there was a "worst fall" story contest. My good friend Jerry Winner told the story of his adventure where he ended up with a number of broken limbs. I beleive he won a pair of 'newfangled' ski blades with his story. Looks like that happened long before the archive of the forum was implemented. I will ping him to see if he has a copy of the story.

19 years old (and invincible - of course!), skiing in a nastar race against a good friend of mine (and a member of the college ski team) at Kissing Bridge in Upstate New York. I tucked the bottom half of the course, hit a bump at full speed, flew sideways and slid headfirst into a tree. Knocked out cold. Came to with a broken right wrist, cracked skull in two places and a subdural hematoma (bleeding into the skull). Spent a week in intensive care after brain surgery to remove a clot and repair the tear, and another week in the hospital to make sure I was going to survive, then home for another month of convalesence. The Ski Patrol was fabulous and did everything right. This was in the days of simple Red Cross first aid BEFORE the advanced emergency medical training given to patrollers now. I was lucky and the team treating me was good. It helped that my dad was best buddies with the neurosurgeon on call that night!

BING BING BING BING BING! Ladies and gentlemen we have a winner...at least until we hear more from GGNagy:-)

Is your last name Olenick or something?? I mean, I don't ski with anyone that would even try a backflip (on purpose), let alone a double back. Lets meet up this year, I want to see some action!!!

Wow! Ya i agree... jim takes the cake! Goes to show why skiing with a helmet is soo important (especially when racing).