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Rocky Mountain Highs and Lows by Allison Woodbury - added June 12, 2006
The Confessions of a Non-Helmet Wearer
I never saw the tree coming. It was as if it uprooted itself just to shift over a few feet and collide with my face. That's the only way I know how to explain it.
And when I tell the story, they all ask the same question: "Were you wearing a helmet?" Damn it, no.
I never saw the tree coming. Not just that day, but in all my years of skiing. I am an expert skier. And expert skiers don't hit trees, right?
But let me start from the beginning.
The day was unfolding beautifully. I woke up to sunshine in Denver -- the forecast predicted a gorgeous 63 degrees in the city. Eighty miles to the west, the Rocky Mountains carved out a magnificent spot on the skyline. They were sheer white; luminous and surreal. And despite the unseasonably warm temperatures in Colorado's capitol city, the mountains had been getting dumped with snow for two days and two nights.
The reaction to blow off work and hit the slopes happened quicker than a Bless You follows a sneeze. My friend Lauren, another unwitting subject to such Pavlovian conditioning, called early that morning. She had to work the graveyard nursing shift at the hospital that night, affording us a full day on the slopes together. So, a couple of grande lattes later, we were on our first chairlift heading up to the summit of Keystone Mountain.
The conditions that day were a skier's dream. Cerulean skies brushed with an occasional cloud. Lodgepole pines frosted in fluffy white layers. Sunshine persistently warming the cold mountain air, snagging itself on prisms of glistening snow that lay undisturbed from the night before.
We took a few lifts up to get to the backside of the mountain, away from the crowds. I was aching for my first run, and previewed the trails as we rode up. A pleasant dusting of powder on the groomed runs. Not bad. On the ungroomed runs, about eight inches. Even better. And deeper in the wooded areas, well over a foot of flawless, fresh snow. Bingo. It was all I could do not to jump out of the chairlift.
Not before long, our skis anxiously teetered over the edge of our first run. It was steep. I turned to Lauren with a grin. Then, like a racehorse out of the starting gate, I dug my poles into the snow like spurs and launched myself off the cliff without looking back. From somewhere within, a "Woo-hoooo!" escaped me as we flew down the center of the trail at exhilarating speeds.
The mountain face was empty except for us two. We floated down in blissful glory, the raw air hissing at our faces and the snow blazing like fire from our skis. Everything in me was smiling. Everything I love about skiing was captured in glorious detail in the first half of that run.
I veered off to the side of the trail, weaving my way in and out of the woods in search of untouched tracks. The snow was like sparkling champagne, lightweight and carbonated, dissolving me further into it with every turn. With needlepoint precision, I carved my way through the trees, left, right, left, right. Then it happened. A tree with a gnarled branch sticking out directly in my path. Full speed. Oh crap.
I instantly ducked to avoid the branch. In turn, I hit the tree dead on.
Lauren must've heard the THUNK a few yards away. She was calling my name as I lay prostrate on my back in the delicate snow, too stunned to respond. My sunglasses lay on the ground next to me, unscathed. Did that mean I was ok? Fact and feeling momentarily played tug-of-war in my head.
I just hit a tree HARD... but strangely; I think I'm ok.
I was not wearing a helmet, and hit a tree at full speed with my head. I should not be alive... yet strangely; I think I'm ok.
I attempted to logically gauge the seriousness of my injuries with a quick quality-assurance test. I wiggled my fingers, turned my head, and slowly sat up. So far, so good. And that's when I felt the sharp sting on my face, accompanied by a shrieking pain on the side of my head. I touched my hand to my scalp and felt a sticky, warm viciousness that could only be blood. I withdrew my hand. It was red.
Lauren had made her way over and was now standing above me, struggling to repress the fear that threatened her gaze. I looked up at her like a wounded child needing the reassurance of her mother before deciding whether or not to scream. Through a cloud of confusion, I spoke. "I don't know what happened... How's my face? Is it bad?"
Lauren relaxed her expression a little, relieved that I was at least coherent. "You're pretty banged up," she replied truthfully. "You hit that tree hard. Should I call Ski Patrol to get you outta here?"
After a few minutes of deliberation, I convinced myself that I felt decent enough to ski down to the nearest lodge. I collected my belongings - my hat, my sunglasses, my two poles - all haphazardly scattered about me in a flea-market fashion; then rose to my feet and emerged from the wooded area into the open trail. The chilly air licked my face -- it felt good. I feebly continued on down to the lodge, with Lauren following close behind.
We reached a mid-mountain lodge a few minutes later. As we walked in, several concerned gazes befell me and I tried not to read too much into them. The pain in my head was a crescendo, steadily increasing in volume and strength. Lauren dutifully went to fetch some ice as I headed straight for the Ladies' Room to survey the damage.
The mirror was cruel. I looked even worse than I felt. A massive abrasion was swelling up under my left eye, rounding out the side of my cheek like a tennis ball. The heat in the bathroom was starting to dilate the capillaries in my face, accelerating the bleeding. I yanked off my hat. My brown hair was crimson, a giant matted dreadlock of hardened blood.
Lauren entered the bathroom, a scavenged sack of soda-machine ice in a hamburger bun bag dangling from her hand. She systematically examined my wound. As an ER nurse, Lauren was unfazed by the fact that my scalp had been torn away, revealing the milky whiteness of my skull. The diagnosis: The scratches and welt on my cheekbone, as awful as they appeared, were mainly cosmetic. But the wound on my scalp was deep, and required several stitches. Since I wasn't nauseous, dizzy or concussed, Lauren suggested waiting until we got back to Denver, where her co-workers at the hospital could take care of me. Her matter-of-factness was comforting.
An hour and a half later, I lay prone on a cold, hard table under the punishing lights of the ER room, still bundled in wind-proof layers fleece and down. In the steel reflection of the swiveling overhead light, I watched the doctor weave the needle in and out of my scalp, in, out, in, out.
As she stitched, she told me how lucky I had been. She told me that I came "as close as one could possibly get" without serious head trauma, or even worse, brain damage. She told me that an injury like this could have been avoided with a helmet. Her tone was flat and nonjudgmental, a first-hand testament to an inevitable truth. I didn't need any more convincing.
As I walked out of the hospital, through the impossibly white hallways, the florescent lights drenched me like a spotlight, ridiculing me as they followed me out. I thought about how ridiculous I must've looked, dressed like an Eskimo on a 63-degree day, swishing through the light-blue crowd of scrubs in my lime-green Gossamer Down and Gortex, my hair wildly sculpted in a hardened, bloody mass, a pear-sized welt erupting from the side of my face.
But as I swished by, the hospital staff mechanically went about their business -- not one head had turned, not one eyebrow had risen. Strange, I thought. It's not like THIS is something you see everyday. And it occurred to me: this is something they see. Maybe not every day, but they had all witnessed this scenario before. Another unsuspecting skier, fresh off the slopes, committed to the ER with a head injury that could've easily been avoided. Another skier who thought she was too good for a helmet. Another skier, who, for years, refused to see it coming.
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