Skiing

I'm off to an alright start this season. Today was my sixth day up so far. I think I'm probably in the black on my pass once I hit around eight days.

Last weekend I skied on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, my sister and I went to Vail where we skied some of the first tracks of the season back in Blue Sky Basin. It was opening day for Blue Sky on a beautiful, sunny day following two days of snow. It was steep and deep. We had powder well above our boots that was pretty thick and heavy in points. It was some of the best skiing I have ever done - a top three day.

Last Sunday was also a beautiful day. I went to Keystone with Pete, Mark, and Miguelina. We got the day off to a pretty good start with runs down Mozart and then a couple of turns in the rising sun over on North Peak. As we headed back to the main mountain in search of more sun, tragedy struck.

Mark fell behind and ended up riding up the chair behind us. Peter, Mig, and I came up with a couple other folks. I was the first one off the chair and turned back to watch Peter and Mig coming down the slope. Miguelina found her board across the back of both of Peter's skis as they cleared the unloading area. She placed her hands on his shoulders momentarily and leaned around to say something to him as she passed behind. As her board cleared his skis, Miguelina momentarily put her free foot into the snow (as opposed to riding with it in the center of her board). Her foot stuck in the snow as her momentum carried her a little further down the modest ramp. I could see that she was having some sort of trouble and was about to fall. Suddenly, her leg just gave way and collapsed backwards and underneath her. At the time, it appeared to me that it was her knee or just below the knee.

She immediately exclaimed, "I broke it!" I already knew that. I saw it buckle under her and go limp. I would later learn from looking at the xray that what had appeared to be her knee giving way was actually her entire leg splintering. She broke her fibula and tibia about a third of the way up the bone. The twisting motion just broke the bones in two. Her leg giving way had actually been the leg breaking and spinning beyond what is possible for it. It was an awful, awful thing to see. I keep calling it a Joe Theisman moment: one of those awful instances where you see somebody's body succumb to forces beyond which it can handle. Awful. And all three of us saw it happen. It still makes me queasy to recall. It's even worse now that I can match what was going on under the skin to what I was seeing. Just awful.

The ski patrol was at Miguelina's side within 90 seconds or so. I had been standing near a guy with a radio when it happened, and I immediately let him know that she had broken her leg. They secured her leg and wrapped her into the stretcher sled. As they were unloading her at the emergency clinic (now probably about 15 minutes from the injury), Miguelina rated her pain on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the worst pain she had ever felt as a 12. The docs were amazed when they saw the first xrays. They called the break, "about as bad as it gets." They could not believe that Miguelina was able to maintain any sort of sense of composure. Another doctor would later tell my brother that she had not seen anyone in roughly four years who was able to hold it together after such a "violent injury."

They doped Mig up with some serious sedative painkillers, grabbed her leg, and yanked and twisted it into a position roughly in line with how it used to be. With her leg temporarily set, they scrambled to find a surgeon in Denver on a Sunday night who could evaluate the situation. They decided to load her up with some more painkillers and directed me to drive her to Swedish Hospital 75 miles away in Denver.

They kept her overnight on Sunday and got her into the operating room on Monday. The doctors placed a hollow metal rod in from the top of her knee. They then essentially reattached her foot to her leg by securing the rod with two pins, one from each side of her ankle. The surgery was supposed to take about 90 minutes but ended up being over two and a half hours. She was originally supposed to be discharged following the surgery, but due to ongoing pain management issues, they kept her for an extra day.

I had dinner with Mig and Peter on Thursday night. Her foot was still extremely swollen. I told her she had cartoon feet because they were so round and puffy. Hopefully, everything seems funnier when on heavy pain killers. She is still in a ton of pain and her day is pretty much spent icing her leg, sleeping, and waiting until she can take the next painkiller. She has crutches, but isn't supposed to put any weight at all on it for two weeks. She is expected to make a full recovery, but her snowboarding days may be over.

This was only Mig's second day up for the season after having bought the pass. Last year, on her second day up for the season, she fell and broke her wrist and missed the entire season except for one or perhaps two spring days. $700 bucks for about four days in two years. It's a bad break in just so many ways.

Jonathan 12/19/2004 07:27:00 PM