Sick/Injured During a Ski Trip

[jimk]

This is kind of a downer subject, but it might present the opportunity to share some lessons learned. Do you have stories about getting sick or injured during a ski trip/vacation? What happened and how did you deal with it?

I've been pretty lucky over the years, but a dark cloud hung over a five-night visit I made to Mammoth Mountain in April 2022. Before the trip my wife and I had been exposed to Covid by a close family member who had tested positive for it. I had prepaid for my condo at Mammoth. The family member did not require our assistance and neither my wife or I had symptoms at the start of the trip to Mammoth. The two of us soldiered on and made the 500 mile drive from SLC to Mammoth.

About halfway through the five-night/four-ski-days visit to Mammoth my wife started exhibiting symptoms (sore/horse throat, fever, cough). Covid famously presented itself with strange and varied symptoms. My wife had sharp pains in her abdomen at onset and we though she might be having a gallstone attack. I took her to the Mammoth Hospital, but they couldn't find a good reason for the pain. It went away, but she was pretty miserable with more typical symptoms and a day later tested positive for Covid.

I still had no symptoms and after ensuring my wife was reasonably comfortable I kept skiing for another 1.5 days - not without some guilt. I minimized my trips inside the Mammoth summit gondola to four in three days (and only once after finding out wife was positive). I was alone for one of the gondi rides. I also pulled up my buff whenever riding the gondi or chairs with others.

If the above sounds like a bunch of excuses for continuing to ski and interacting with the public after exposure to Covid, I apologize. I was able to complete the four ski-days I had planned for the trip. But on the return drive to Utah I started exhibiting symptoms too and tested positive for Covid two days after we returned to SLC from Mammoth. It was the first time my wife and I had caught it and you don't realize the dilemma that can be caused by the idea of stopping your life and going into full isolation mode, so I probably didn't strictly follow CDC guidelines. Hopefully we didn't give it to anyone else, particularly the Mammoth Hospital staff.

I had symptoms like a bad chest cold with fatigue, seriously for about 5 days, mildly for about 5 more days. I didn't ski for 9 days, but was able to do light household and yard chores after the first 3 or 4 days. While I was sick with Covid I missed one very good powder day in the Wasatch, but overall I was thankful that our variant of the corona virus wasn't too debilitating.

My April 2022 Mammoth trip report.

 

[Sbooker]

I broke and dislocated my collar bone and broke mt thumb in a crash while in the Dolomites back in early 2018.

I look back now and admit that it was stupid to keep skiing. But in my defence I didn’t know the collar bone was actually broken until I got back to Australia. It’s disclosed (at the sternum end) to this day.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I documented our first bout of COVID in March 2023 between Pocatello/Pebble Creek and Big Sky.

My broken rib collision at Mammoth in April 2008 was also detailed here.

I've had two other injuries that ended or interrupted a ski season. I snapped an ACL in 1976 at Mt. Baldy as a beginner. I tore the meniscus in the same knee at Targhee in February 1995, fortunately on the last day of a 5-day trip. As in 2008 I resumed skiing later that season.

Liz has had more major injuries. The broken shoulder at Mt. High in January 2020 was detailed here.

Liz also had a season ending knee injury requiring surgery in Rendezvous Bowl at Jackson in January 2007, before I knew her.

 

[MarzNC]

Luckily for me, the only two injuries or illnesses during a ski trip were relatively minor. The seasons that were over 15 days for me have all happened in the last 15 years, after age 50.

Tweaked a calf muscle at Timberline in WV while skiing on a groomer in foggy conditions with a friend who was there for the first time. Was looking back to me sure she was following. We had a slopeside room for 2 nights. I didn't ski the next day, could walk around gingerly when I met her for lunch. Drove home the next day (6 hours), instead of back to the Massanutten timeshare unit I was using as a home base. Went straight to ortho urgent care. The PA was sure the knee was fine (no ACL, not a skiing injury) and it was just a calf strain. Drove back to Mnut the following day because that was a holiday long weekend with plans to ski with my friend's tween. Took is easier the rest of the season. Ironically made my skiing technique better in the long run. if I was dialed in, nothing hurt. If I got lazy, I could feel the call complain.

The season after all of my ski buddies were vaccinated for COVID-19, one of them was exposed just before arriving to join an informal group trip and turned out to be contagious. He tested negative after learning about the exposure. But he tested positive a week later. We were at Taos with about 20 others. Some were better friends than others. Some were sharing rooms, some were not. My friends were all at the Alpine Village Suites, a slopeside lodge. Patient Zero felt tired in the middle of the week. He was in my Private Ski Week with two others and did not skip a lesson (mornings only). He had two bad nights, before and after the day he felt "off." Felt fine afterwards. I had similar symptoms a day later. Was fine after about 36 hours. Same story for a few other people, but not everyone we knew. After he tested positive on the way home the following Monday, most of my friends self-tested and were also positive. By then we were all feeling fine. Felt bad for the oldest (over 70) who had lingering symptoms, mostly fatigue, for several weeks. He was the roommate of Patient Zero.

 

[jimk]

You can't really "like" a post in this thread

 

[Tony Crocker]

Tweaked a calf muscle

I did that by skiing into a dip in bad vis on my first out of 4 days cat skiing at Chatter Creek in 2010. I came to an abrupt halt but not with enough force to eject. Fortunately the calf is well protected in a ski boot so the remaining skiing was not compromised. But walking around the lodge was painful, especially stairs which I had to do sideways. When I left Chatter Creek 3 days later I still had some discomfort but I could walk reasonably.

 

[Sbooker]

Somewhat related.
My credit card insurance covers for “on piste” snow sports. I obviously pay the extra for the “off piste” I do in Europe trips. Do I need to pay the extra for my North American trip considering I only ski inbounds?

 

[MarzNC]

In my case, the binding popped eventually. Was glad it did because otherwise I think there would've been more damage. Since that was in January, it had an impact on the rest of my season. In some ways provided more incentive to get back to working on ski conditioning during the off season. I'm not only a better skier in 2024, I'm stronger than I was 5-6 years ago. Even though I'm pushing 70.

 

[tseeb]

I could write a book here.

My first snowcat skiing trip in Feb. 2015 started with me likely having Shigella. I was never tested, but my son tested positive and we'd both been in El Salvador and ate the same things including some questionable curtido at a pupusa place between the coast and San Salvador. He and I were the only ones who got sick and also the only ones who ate there that were not born in El Salvador. We both took some anti-diarrhea medicine for flight home. I only had a day or two at home before leaving for BC. On my way N, I spent the night in my SUV in Sunriver, skied over 45K at Bachelor, then had some explosive diarrhea early the next morning at a motel in Redmond. (Later the same day I got my only speeding ticket since I got a radar detector coming around a corner in river canyon on WA-17. I paid the ticket less than a half-hour later in Bridgeport and it never showed up on my insurance.) After some calls to my health care provider, I waited over an hour at a hardware store/pharmacy in Brewster, WA for a prescription to arrive, but it never did so I continued on to Kelowna, BC where a friend of @Tony Crocker put us up. I met up with them at dinner, but only had soup. The next morning, I went to a clinic/pharmacy nearby where I was prescribed antibiotics to take out possible Shigella which would not be a good thing to bring into a remote cat skiing lodge.

In Feb 2016, my first time skiing Whistler, this was after Mustang, skiing Revelstoke and Sun Peaks then spending night in Lillooet and skiing two days at Whistler with Extremely Canadian. My plan was to ski Mt Baker the next day. But Baker was not getting as good snow and hostel where I was staying had room for me for another night, so I signed up for First Tracks where they start loading Whistler gondola at 7:30 and includes a buffet breakfast at top and start skiing early. My trip report includes "I had my second boot buckling injury of the trip when I thought a bench along wall in lodge looked like a good place to buckle in. But the seat slanted back and I slightly strained my right-side lower back muscles while reaching to pull third buckle tight. I finished buckling boots using ski stand outside, then skied a couple of groomer laps on Emerald chair to try to loosen it up or at least not add to the pain." I'm not sure what the first boot buckling injury was as I didn't post in Feb 2016 Mustang thread where there are some pictures of me (and some sideways and upside down photos) and I don't see anything in Okanagan or other BC threads. My report from my third Whistler day includes "I rode bottom part of Excalibur gondola to my car where I took three ibuprofen and picked up a beer for the rest of the gondola ride." And "I quit at 2:40 with 30.5K" then drove to Seattle.

Two days later at Ashland, OR when I skied PM half-day in the middle of 12-hour drive home from Vancouver, WA includes "didn't see wind or grooming ridge and hit it hard and fast enough to lose a ski and go down and bounce up on very firm snow. It was a dramatic enough fall for me to wonder if I was OK and for a couple skiing above me to come check on me and bring me my ski. The good news from it was that my strained back seemed to be better, but the bad news is that I bruised the hip and side of ribs on the same side." Rest of my post includes "I took some ibuprofen and a shot of tequila and swapped skis." and "I quit a little before 4 with almost 15.7K.

Both @Tony Crocker and I had back issues between Kicking Horse (trip report includes "3+ hr ride/drive from Kicking Horse to Fernie that may have been start of my back problem in late Feb 2020. I also did not take the time to do my usual daily back exercise that morning"), Fernie and Castle Mountain. I'd done the Ozone hike at Kicking Horse, but even though we used hot tub and got massages at spa in Fernie, my post, number 4 in Castle thread includes "I got to experience Castle as an intermediate as my back did not like ungroomed snow as I could not unweight or jump turn, had to take time to get stable after turns on ungroomed and had to stem to initiate some of my turns. " But still skied over 23K that day and 25K the next.

There are probably more that I'm forgetting (or purposely leaving out?), but last March during my only full day skiing the same resort as SkiTalk Gathering, I passed up Main Chute which looked doable for me, but I didn't want to get hurt. Then after skiing to the bottom and riding Wa She Shu and Siberia and skiing "Siberia going right at the top down Siberia Ridge a little before dropping off into smooth enough, but wind-chopped powder before skiing blown into to the bottom where my worst fall in a long time happened. I must have hit an unseen groomer or wind lip at speed and it threw me in the air and I came down hard on packed snow losing both skis. I hit hard enough that I had multiple body parts to test to see if they were OK. It seemed like worst was a couple of ribs on the left side." My last post in that thread includes "Four weeks and a day later, I'm without pain in ribs although shoulder on that side is still a little stiff. I didn't help it by falling on it at Kirkwood on Monday when I missed a turn on steep slope that is a rocky cliff until filled in next to Olympic. I laid it over and ended up with skis a foot or so from/above a couple of trees."

I've suffered through many coughs and possibly mild colds on ski trips, but I don't think I've ever broken any bones skiing but have bruised ribs too many times. The only bones I've ever broken are collarbone when I was 12-13 while playing football on friend's lawn and was tackled on sidewalk in middle of lawn, and collarbone and 4 ribs from dirt bike crash that prevented me from skiing in July 2017 and also included a collapsed lung and my first ever hospital stay.

Another couple and us canceled planned trip to Europe in 2020 due to COVID. We re-scheduled it for Oct. 2022, we all ended up with COVID, possibly from elevator ride connecting tunnel to castle in Alicante, Spain. My friend tested positive our first morning in Portugal three days later, his wife a day or two later and my wife was next. I never had symptoms or stopped sightseeing, but tested positive when I got home and stayed away from my Mom who will be 95 in May until I tested negative.

I had a scary extension ladder ride in mid-Oct this year when painting fascia on our house one last time while I'm still young enough to do it. I had been painting on side of house and thought I had enough sun left to do some on back of house. But I had the ladder angle wrong and Trex deck was much slicker than having ladder base on dirt on side of house. When ladder base slipped, I dropped about 10' and spilled a lot of paint that I had to clean up, doing more work than finishing painting would have taken. I ended up with gashes in both shins, one deep enough that it mostly kept me out of water in Maui until our last day on trip a month later, and missing skin on fingertips on one hand that healed more quickly. All better now, but good thing I was wearing pants, not shorts.

 

[jasoncapecod]

Great stories!!!!!!

 

[berkshireskier]

Tseeb, I think your stories of woe on the slopes and off, can best be summarized by that age-old philosophical quote "sh*t happens".

But I feel your pain.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Tseeb, I think your stories of woe on the slopes and off, can best be summarized by that age-old philosophical quote "sh*t happens".

Most of what's been described in this thread by can be thus summarized IMHO. The injuries I mentioned in this thread are on a different level and after hearing about them over the past few seasons I consider mine relatively minor. That list started with Liz' shoulder in Jan. 2020 and Lonnie's lower tibia in the trees at Taos in Mar. 2021. Since then there have been 13 more involving skiers we know.

My two cents of criteria of increasing severity:
1) Did it end your season? This was true for all 15 on that list except for Patrick, whose streak takes absolute priority! This is somewhat arbitrary because the same injury that ends a season in May might not end a season in January. Of my 3 major accidents only the ACL as a beginner ended my season. As severe as Liz' shoulder injury was, her rehab was so diligent that she could have skied Memorial Day if not for the COVID shutdown.
2) Was surgery required? 13 of the 15 on the list required surgery vs. none mentioned above in this thread.
3) Did you miss all of the following ski season in addition to the season of the injury? This was true for skibum4ever's complex knee injury in Dec. 2021, tseeb's wife Lucia's concussion in Jan. 2022 and Adam's wife Alexa's lower tib/fib in Feb. 2022. Alexa needed followup surgeries to remove metal hardware that was not tolerable to put inside a ski boot. It is not yet determined whether concussion aftereffects of Lonnie's Feb. 2024 collision will keep him off the slopes this season.
4) Permanent degrading of one's ski ability.
5) Retiring from skiing completely.

 

[tseeb]

My two cents of criteria of increasing severity:
1) Did it end your season? This was true for all 15 on that list except for Patrick, whose streak takes absolute priority! This is somewhat arbitrary because the same injury that ends a season in May might not end a season in January. Of my 3 major accidents only the ACL as a beginner ended my season. As severe as Liz' shoulder injury was, her rehab was so diligent that she could have skied Memorial Day if not for the COVID shutdown.

I should probably not jinx myself, but the only time in all my injury reports above (besides dirt bike crash when they did not want me going to altitude for 6 weeks after collapsed lung) I may have missed chance for a day was when I had Shigella on my first ski trip to BC. We could have skied Silver Star or Big White on Mustang pickup day, but I'm thinking conditions were not that great and we would have had to start and quit early. Otherwise, I never let a little pain or soreness keep me from skiing as much and as hard as I could, even with driving to re-locate between ski areas.

I can remember two other bruised ribs skiing. First was when I was living at Tahoe and I got air and slammed into a mogul underneath what used to be Cornice II, to lookers left of Headwall. The other was when skiing at Kirkwood and I kept hitting jump underneath Sunrise chair a little harder each time until I sailed off it too far and landing on the flat after dropping at least 20 feet. I knew I couldn't land it without hurting my back or legs and took the thankfully somewhat soft snow on ribs and shoulder.

 

[jimk]

I should probably not jinx myself, but the only time in all my injury reports above (besides dirt bike crash when they did not want me going to altitude for 6 weeks after collapsed lung) I may have missed chance for a day was when I had Shigella on my first ski trip to BC. We could have skied Silver Star or Big White on Mustang pickup day, but I'm thinking conditions were not that great and we would have had to start and quit early. Otherwise, I never let a little pain or soreness keep me from skiing as much and as hard as I could, even with driving to re-locate between ski areas.

I can remember two other bruised ribs skiing. First was when I was living at Tahoe and I got air and slammed into a mogul underneath what used to be Cornice II, to lookers left of Headwall. The other was when skiing at Kirkwood and I kept hitting jump underneath Sunrise chair a little harder each time until I sailed off it too far and landing on the flat after dropping at least 20 feet. I knew I couldn't land it without hurting my back or legs and took the thankfully somewhat soft snow on ribs and shoulder.

Yeah, somebody asked me this fall if I'd ever had a serious, show stopping ski injury. And I never had anything that kept me out more than a week, and very few that kept me out more than a day. Shortly after, my back went out before the season even started
It's gradually getting better though.

 

[Tony Crocker]

And I never had anything that kept me out more than a week, and very few that kept me out more than a day.

That's an impressive record at our age!

Shortly after, my back went out

A sensitive back gives you immediate feedback if you crouch too much when skiing vs. a maintaining a more upright stance. A more colorful description of proper ski posture is f*** don't s***.