What is your scariest ski moment?

[MadMadWorld]

I am new to the board but I have to share my story. I was 17 at the time and an instructor at Wachusett. I had been given the afternoon off from lessons so I decided to go out and play around in the park on my skis. That is about all I remember from that day and the rest of the story has been pieced together from ski patrol and other instructors. I had entered the pipe and came off the wall at a good clip and got about 5-10 ft of air. I completely miscalculated the landing though because the tails of my skis clipped the top of the pipe. This caused me to fall head first to the bottom of the pipe where I laid face down unconscious for a few minutes. At some point, I managed to get my skis back on and make it to the bottom. I even managed to help a instructor shuttle a child to another class on the other side of the mountain. At this point my face was a swollen mess and I was just stumbling around delirious but somehow I made it back to ski school before I fell unconscious again. I woke up completely unaware of where I was or who the people were around me (one of which was my gf who was an employee at the time). Needless to say, I ended up with a very serious concussion, broken cheek and orbital bone but I lived to ski another day!

 

[Nick]

I am new to the board but I have to share my story. I was 17 at the time and an instructor at Wachusett. I had been given the afternoon off from lessons so I decided to go out and play around in the park on my skis. That is about all I remember from that day and the rest of the story has been pieced together from ski patrol and other instructors. I had entered the pipe and came off the wall at a good clip and got about 5-10 ft of air. I completely miscalculated the landing though because the tails of my skis clipped the top of the pipe. This caused me to fall head first to the bottom of the pipe where I laid face down unconscious for a few minutes. At some point, I managed to get my skis back on and make it to the bottom. I even managed to help a instructor shuttle a child to another class on the other side of the mountain. At this point my face was a swollen mess and I was just stumbling around delirious but somehow I made it back to ski school before I fell unconscious again. I woke up completely unaware of where I was or who the people were around me (one of which was my gf who was an employee at the time). Needless to say, I ended up with a very serious concussion, broken cheek and orbital bone but I lived to ski another day!

Crazy!

Reminds me of a non-skiing accident when I was about 14 years old. I was riding my bike back home from a friends house, he lived on a steep hill, I was going down the hill pretty quickly (must have been 20 - 30mph, for sure. we used to clock each other down the hill and hit 50 on our bikes). Anyway I go launching from the road over a curb with a bunny hop and just overshoot the sidewalk and hit a bush in someone's front line. Bike stops in the bush, I keep going headfirst over a retaining wall and I land headfirst in someone's driveway. Thankfully I had a helmet on, but I don't really remember it.

The next thing I remember I was in the hospital getting a CT scan. Later on, more of it came to me ... apparently I went to the house, knocked on the door and the lady let me call my parents, who came and picked me up. I went home for a while and then they decided I should go to the hospital, which was my first memory.

More came back later, but it was very scary, particularly in retrospect. Glad you ended up OK!

PS: Welcome to the forums!

 

[ceo]

I've told both of these before, but: Age 12 or so, hitting air next to a tower on Spillway and overrotating, and the realization that I'm going to land on my face. I had not heard the term "yard sale" at that point, but when I later did hear it I instantly understood what it meant.

Then there's some years ago, on a ridiculously cold and windy day even by Cannon standards, and as the tram car comes off Tower 3, it starts juddering violently from side to side, due to the track cables whipping up and down in the wind. For a few seconds it really felt like it was going to fall right off.