At one point do you determine that maybe your life isn’t just about Murphy’s Law but you are, in actuality, cursed? The day before I started my new job, I took the kids for one last fun-filled ski day on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It has been a dismal winter and we’ve had minimal snow but the resort has done an excellent job snowmaking and using what they have. The conditions were great!
We try not to eat lunch on the mountain because it’s $15 for a slice of pizza (I’m not exaggerating) but we were all hungry and planned to split chicken fingers and fries. As we were heading down to Mid-mountain Lodge, we saw a group take what looked like a fun trail through the trees. “Where does this lead?” I asked. They weren’t sure and Bode was hungry for some tree bashing because most of his Adventure Alleys were still closed. Hadley didn’t want to follow them because we would have had to hike back up to the lodge in our skis but Bode begged to ski down a bit just to see where it led. I gave Hadley permission to head to the lodge and we met her a couple of minutes later. As I pulled up to the ski rack, I saw a skier on the ground surrounded by people. Then I saw pink goggles–Hadley’s pink goggles. Alarmed, I took off my skis and raced over to find her flat on her back, obviously injured. The lodge is at the intersection of a few runs and she was almost to the ski racks when she was pummeled from behind by an out-of-control snowboarder.
Ski Patrol was quickly on the scene and I was relieved she had movement in her legs and toes. There were tears in her eyes but she didn’t cry and she later told me those tears were only because “I realized just how sad my life is.” Poor kid.
They carefully loaded her onto a backboard and then placed her on the sled. A female ski patroller took her down the mountain, hooking up with the snowmobile a couple of times. Bode and I followed her and actually beat them down to the Ski Patrol hut, which looked like a warzone with injured skiers and snowboarders scattered throughout the waiting area.
The doctor saw her fairly quickly and ascertained he didn’t think anything was broken but because it was a back injury and she couldn’t sit up, she needed to go to the hospital for X-rays. What would have taken a looong time in our big-city hospital took only a couple of hours in Park City. Jamie, his dad and sister all have bad backs so we were relieved to learn that nothing was broken. She stayed home from school today because she’s really sore and we’re praying for no long-term problems.
A few memorable/funny moments:
The girl has always struggled in math and I’m convinced she has dyscalculia (think: math dyslexia). Our old house in Colorado had an actual street address so she could remember that but here in Utah, it’s all just numbers i.e. 258 South 794 West. When the ski patrol was questioning her to see if she had a concussion, two of his questions were “what is your address?” and “what is the date?” We had a good chuckle when I replied, “She doesn’t remember her address or day of the week on a good day.”
When the ski patrol strapped her into the sled, they bundled her up tight and I joked with her not to put her arm up. When she was a baby and I tried to swaddle her (which she hated), her rebellion was to stick her little arm out.
While we were in the waiting area at the Ski Patrol Hut, a snowboarder was there with her friends and had a huge gash in her knee. Ski Patrol had ripped her pant leg open and at one point, she started freaking out, “Oh no, look how much blood there is!” because her ski pants were lined in red. But then a few seconds later, she realized her ski pants were actually had a red liner and it wasn’t all blood.
I have had two accidents on the slopes, both by out-of-control snowboarders. My most recent was on my first ski day of the season with Bode last year and it was BAD…I couldn’t get up for several minutes and a sweet angel woman who saw the collision held me the entire time until we made sure I was OK. I was sore for week but thankfully I don’t have any long-term repercussions but I do suffer from mild PTSD. Whenever I hear the sound of a snowboard coming up behind me, I tense up and slow down.
Hadley initially wanted me to ride in the ambulance with her and I definitely would have if she had been seriously injured or was freaking out but she was calm and the hospital was only a few minutes away so Bode and I followed her in the car. The paramedics/firefighters were all handsome men, as were the male nurses who attended to her when she arrived. And this did not go unnoticed to her.
Jamie met us at the hospital while Hadley was having her X-rays and he told me, “This morning, I just paid off all the medical expenses from her broken arm last summer.” And now we’re several more thousand dollars in the hole thanks to our crappy insurance (the joys of self-employment) for an accident that wasn’t even our fault. My friend Mike commented on my Facebook page I was surely missing socialized medicine and I couldn’t agree more.
As weird as it sounds, the Park City Hospital is renowned for its cafeteria food and we were excited to find affordable locally grown and organic foods like healthy soups, salads, and sandwiches and entrees.
Hadley’s leaders from church brought her a milkshake and paid her a visit that night. Her sweet friend McKenna came over to hang out. She has had some health (kidney) problems of her own so they were joking about their matching hospital bands.
We were laughing remembering Hadley’s first time in the ER when Jamie was having heart problems. She was really young and kept waving and saying “hi” to everyone, appalled that no one waved back or responded. Because, you know, they were in the ER and it isn’t exactly a happy place.
How I know she’ll probably be OK: During all the chaos following the accident, she hopefully asked me, “Does this mean I don’t have to go to school tomorrow?”
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So, what’s next for our family? Never leave the house? Bubblewrap? Only time will tell.
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 