[unclebilly]

I posted about this in Look171’s thread.

A week ago, my 6 year old daughter had a huge wreck at the ski hill. She wound up somersaulting and cartwheeling about 650 meters and about 350 meters (vertical drop), hit a rock, and went over a cliff part way down on a double black run.

She started skiing in the Rockies at 18 months old and this run was not too difficult for her. The run is a chute and she got the side of a wind swept icy patch and crossed her skis on her turn and the tumble started.

I may have set a speed record skiing after her trying to catch her. I thought she was going to be a paraplegic or worse yet, dead when I got to her. Instead, she sat up and started crying.

I checked her vitals, and she complained of a sore left bum cheek. She had what looked like raccoon eyes, mostly on the right side so I suspected concussion. We got the ski patrol to take her down the hill the rest of the way in a T-Bog where they checked her out further and warmed her up. Then then they gave her to me - she could walk but it hurt.

I rushed her to the local small town hospital where she got several x-rays, 2 ultrasounds of her internal organs, a cervical collar, and was warmed up again. They found a fractured pelvis but couldn’t properly access brain or spinal damage. They then sent her and my wife via high speed ambulance (140 km/h) to the Alberta Children’s Hospital for work with the Trauma team. That is amazing facility with the most amazing staff.

When my wife and daughter arrived at Children’s a team of 12-15 doctors was waiting for them. Each doctor has their own speciality and would jump in as needed. I arrived only about 15 minutes after the ambulance (they took a dumb route through Calgary).

So we got off pretty lucky. She has some pretty good bruising, the raccoon eye appears to be from her ski goggles (it has turned into a shiner), and a cracked pelvis. After the first 3 days, we haven’t had to give her anything for pain and she is walking with a walker when we go out. At home, she keeps weight off her left leg.

Her helmet had several dents in the top including a deep sharp dent, likely from the rock she hit that would have resulted in a very serious head injury if not for the helmet.

I spent several days thinking about the activities that my kids do: skiing, dirt biking, kart racing, quading, etc. I was wondering if maybe we should take up activities with less risk... I believe strongly that kids need mitigated risk in their lives. Video games and soccer don’t give them this. I came to the conclusion that I’m not going to push as hard and am going to continue to insist on the best safety gear for my kids (and me). I have since ordered AEXOS HALO shirts for the kids and one for me.

We meet the orthopaedic surgeon again on January 8th and he will assess her healing progress. This will determine when she starts skiing again. It’s a shame because her program starts tomorrow. We are so lucky that her guardian angel saved her from getting hurt far worse than she was. This could / should have been far worse than it is.

We are fortunate.

If you or your kids ski or do any high risk activities, make sure you have an appropriate high quality and proper fitting helmet. It made a big difference for my little girl.