“It will never be me.”
Like most keen skiers, this is what I have silently told myself, with fingers
metaphorically crossed, whenever I have seen another skier or snowboarder,
battered and bloodied, being ferried from the slopes on a “blood-wagon” – a
low sled covered in orange tarpaulin serving as a stretcher for the
mountains’ wounded.
More than any cold at altitude, the sight sends a shiver down the spine.
Perhaps I even thought of this vain hope as I tumbled head over heels, out of
control, a cart-wheeling mass of arms, legs, poles and skis, down the steep
end of a ski run in Switzerland’s fashionable St Moritz at the start of
February.
My mind was elsewhere as the end of one ski wedged itself brutally into the
packed snow, my right leg still attached, wrenching my knee viciously as I
continued to fall down the mountainside.
By the time I came to a stop, it took mere seconds to realise that I was about
the join the legions of the badly injured and have humiliatingly, be rescued
by the ski patrol and stretchered off. My right leg, skewed at an unnatural
angle, refused to move, rewarding any attempt to make it budge with an
agonizing jolt of pain. It was shattered.
Even as a group of very kind Italian skiers fetched help, as my leg was
wrapped in a cushion of inflatable bubble-wrap, and I was gingerly lifted
onto my own blood-wagon, the hope remained - it can’t be that serious,
surely. It lingered on as I lay on the snow waiting for the transport, as an
ambulanceman I injected me with painkillers, and as I fished out my mobile
to gently break the news to my girlfriend - sipping coffee at the top of the
mountain.
Yet, with a cruel inevitability, hope mutated instantly to fear as a crusty
but clearly expert surgeon peered at my X-rays.
The words are ingrained: “It’s a terrible fracture,” he told me. “We must
operate immediately.” I cringed inwardly at the news that the top of my
tibia - the right lower leg - was in about 20 fragments, and my right
anterior cruciate ligament - which controls the flexing of the knee was …
well was no more. Apparently I had also “exploded” the cartilage of my right
knee.
As I struggled to absorb all of this, several hours of further X-rays and MRI
scans followed, then and epidural anaesthetic and three hours of surgery to
piece together my bones with a scary-looking titanium plate, pins and
screws.
The ligament was recreated with a plastic prosthetic. Then days of rest
mingled with shock and disbelief, the removal of drains and catheters and
eventually the start of physiotherapy, and hobbling pathetically on
crutches. Painkillers were welcome.
But I was in good and expert hands. Four weeks later and my NHS doctors at
home told me how they were “marveling” at the repair job on my leg and knee.
The surgeon responsible had himself saved some extra X-rays of what he
described as “an interesting case”. The plate, he suggested, should perhaps
be surgically removed in a year or two. I’d have preferred not to be such a
good case study.
Ahead lies a long haul of physiotherapy and slow but (hopefully) steady
recovery. Behind, the shock of the accident, the stress of arranging
repatriation - eased by excellent help from British Airways, I was relieved
to find - and (a warning to others, a nightmarish battle with my insurers to
get them to pay the £10,000 bill for my treatment).
I’d been lucky for ten years of wonderful skiing - but no-one can know when
they will find themselves laying helplessly on a blood-wagon, staring at the
mountains above, and wondering just what the hell they thought they were
doing.
Please name and shame the insurers. Have just had a good experience with Snowcard - they paid for my girlfriend's broken rib treatment speedily and with minimal fuss
John Davies, London, UK