I was cruising through the powder having a great day when, the end of my snowboard dug into the powder and stopped dead, unfortunately my body didn’t stop with it. I squealed in pain and lay face down in the snow holding my knee. My boyfriend had to take his snowboard off and climb back up the hill to get to me. He was asking if I was ok and if I needed ski patrol, “No I’ll be ok in a minute” I replied. My boyfriend undid my bindings so I could take my feet out and roll over. 5 minutes later I tried standing up and found it was ok, so I strapped my snowboard back on and continued very cautiously down the cedar bowl to the T-bar.
I watched people riding the T-bar and debated if I could make it, the last thing I wanted was to get ski patrol so I gritted my teeth and rode the T-bar to the top. The next step was to ride down a blue run to the boomerang lift to get me back up to one of the main runs leading back to the base area. The boomerang is a 3 man chair with no foot rest, this was a painful ride but I made it and managed to dismount at the top and skate along the cat track to the run where I could put my board back on. This was an awesome powder day and I was determined that I could carry on riding I just needed a rest. I heel edged down the bear run as it was very tracked out and bumpy, and made it to the cafe half way down.
At the cafe we had a cigarette and a hot chocolate. I limped around for a bit until my boyfriend said we need to take a look at it and see if it’s swollen. I pulled the leg of my trousers up and displayed a very swollen knee, by this point I was in a lot of pain. I looked at my boyfriend holding back the tears in my eyes and said I can’t ride down. This was a very depressing decision to make, I have never needed ski patrol before and hopefully never will again. My boyfriend went to the top of the nearest lift (just round the corner) and asked them to radio it through, before he had got back 2 ski patrollers had turned up. I knew I couldn’t ride down but I could stand up and I really didn’t want to be strapped into a stretcher and skied down. One of the ski patrol men came over and introduced himself then asked exactly what had happened, how bad it was and could I stand up on it. Once he had seen me stand and the fear in my eyes about the stretcher he said I`ll tell you what, as you can bear weight on it we’ll get you a skidoo. If my knee wasn’t so painful I would have hugged him.
Within 2 minutes a skidoo was there ready to take me down the hill, I limped over to it and they strapped my snowboard onto the back. The guy driving was very nice he told me to hold on and said he wouldn’t go too fast. As soon as he got onto the easy run to the bottom he opened it up. Wow those things go quick even after my ordeal and the embarrassment I was feeling I still had a smile on my face by the time we got to the bottom. When we arrived at first aid he checked out my knee and advised that it was just a sprain with no serious damage. They gave me a bandage and an ice pack and filled in some paperwork. My boyfriend ordered a taxi and took me home.
All in all a bad day on the slopes turned into a good experience. I had always been scared of what would happen if I had to be rescued by ski patrol, they were all very nice and friendly and did not make me feel any more embarrassed than I already was. I am glad they didn’t put me in a stretcher although if they had needed to I`m sure they would have made the experience as easy and as light hearted as possible. Thank you ski patrol!