Heel Edge Projects – Make it or Break it

It wasn’t until a week later that I saw the x-ray. I thought it was joke as I looked at the image...

...expecting to see a very unimpressive small hairline crack. Holy shit! I couldn’t believe that was my leg, had they got things mixed up?

Helen Fox, Greg Stevens and I headed up the Ahorn in Mayrhofen to escape the crowds and go find some fun stuff to film on for the Heel Edge Project. We were heading down to a spot where Helen and the boys had been filming the other day, reccying new spots on the way. It wasn’t long before I spotted a fallen tree trunk about 20 meters or so up from the small track we had taken off the main piste. I’d had an itch to session a natural tree for some time; last season I’d found an interesting spot but concluded it was suicide so kept looking for a better one. We hiked up to the tree to check out the potential.

Tree set up

It had a perfect natural kicker going onto it that just needed a pat-down. We ran a board over the top of the trunk, brushing the snow off to make sure there was nothing we would get caught up on. The trunk didn’t need any prep so the session was on. There was a small tree just to the left of the landing that we discussed as a potential hazard or potential tree tap. We were confident it wasn’t a problem as the trunk itself was pretty mellow.

The first hit I took safely, just slid a short way along the trunk to get a feel for it and bailed backwards on my safety line. Happy with how it was sliding, the second time I was full of confidence; I dropped and stomped a solid 5050. Helen hit it a few times but was a little apprehensive as it favoured a goofy rider – so she decided to hit switch.

It was third time unlucky that it all went very wrong… I dropped in confidently, then not really sure what happened, must of slipped out on my back edge, missed the safety bail, bounced with a full pelt off the trunk, flipped forwards and landed on another small fallen trunk in front of me.

Break

There was a sudden surge of pain. As you do when you’ve had a big stack, there are a few seconds where your brain tries to assess the damage. I’d had a hefty stack the week before catching a whopper of a back edge as I came off a rail at Sista Sessions. I was comparing the pain to this, but this time it didn’t subside; I couldn’t move. Helen and Greg report shrieks of ‘not the normal’ kind. In a twisted position with my head in the snow I screamed: “get me out of my bindings” – they did a grand job and released me quickly. Pure adrenalin must of got me round and I managed to swivel into a sitting position with help from Helen supporting my leg. Sat there in shock, it hit me that I wouldn’t be riding down the mountain that day. All I could think was “Is this it? Season over?”. I could wiggle my toes so I knew this was good, the pain was coming from around my knee area. As Greg rode of to get help I said to Helen “It doesn’t feel like it’s attached. I think I’ve dislocated my knee, maybe they can just pop it back in?” I could move my lower leg independently of my upper with a small touch of my hand. Frozen. I was in excruciating pain, it came in waves. So long as I didn’t move an inch it was kind of ok. Manageable. It felt good to apply pressure above the knee with both hands. At one point Helen and I tried to tie a bandana around it.

We were off-piste and about 20 meters above a small cat track. Worried about being in trouble for breaking through the barriers and not seeing how the rescue team could get me out from where I was sitting, Helen and I decided that we should try and move to the track – it just wasn’t happening; I couldn’t move.

Rescue

To my relief we could hear a piste basher coming – my chariot! A lifftie climbed up our boot pack and came to assess me. I think he must have known what I’d done but he didn’t say anything. He asked if I could move and I said no.

At this point I was getting cold and apparently as white as a sheet, certainly shocked and feeling dizzy now. The liftie said he was calling in the chopper, with a doctor and morphine. I was happy to hear that they could get me from where I was and I didn’t have to move.

The helicopter arrived about five minutes later with a friendly doctor who pumped me full of morphine, first a little, I told him I still had pain; “give me everything you’ve got”. He gave me more – everything went a bit floaty and the pain become more distant, still there but more like an ache now. It took four men to lift me onto the stretcher and carry me out down to the cat track. Here they put me on the front of a piste basher which was kind of exciting and drove me to the helicopter waiting on the corner.

The helicopter started and we were up and away. I waved bye bye to Helen and Greg. The doctor announced that the time was 2pm and that we were heading off to hospital, the flight would be about seven minutes, then he carried on to take my personal details. I stared out the window as I flew down the valley, just thinking about how much I loved this place. We had had a bit of a holiday shred the day before and we flew over the café at the top of Hoch Fugen where we had stopped for a beer, I remembered how excitedly we’d sat there checking out the terrain and looking at lines for when the snow came.

KRANKENHAUS

Before long we landed on the roof of the hospital James Bond stylie and nurses rushed out to greet me and just like a ‘Casualty’ scene the doctors filled them in. I went straight into X-ray; no messing around. The morphine was rapidly wearing off and I had nurses on both arms and legs tugging to get my clothes off. I was shouting “just cut them off, I don’t care”.

I lay there stripped bare on the x-ray table, totally surreal, completely helpless; nothing I could do but go with the flow. I could hear my mobile ringing distantly in my jacket pocket but was unable to answer it. They took some x-rays and I had to be manoeuvred into several uncomfortable, painful positions.

I had broken my leg – a fracture to the left femur and the doctor informed me that I would need an operation that would take about an hour and after that I would be put in a room and given lots of drugs. I was looking forward to this room.

I was reasonably comfortable until without warning one of the nurses came over and moved my good leg to put a pillow underneath it – that was it, he must of seen the evil in my eyes as I screamed and howled at the pain, yelling directly at him for nudging me. Wheeling me through the hospital I can still see the faces of people waiting in the corridors just staring blankly at me as I screamed in sheer pain, trying to pant through it as we moved through the hospital. Finally, up on the ward, I was given something for the pain and the next few hours became a blur as I lay drifting in and out of consciousness as I waited to be called up for the operation.

It suddenly struck me – what happens if I need a wee! I called the nurse by pressing the button that dangled above my head and asked her, she returned with a bed pan/ potty. I had to hoist myself up using a handle above me so the potty could be slid underneath my bum. With no other option I just had to grin and bear it. Once sitting on the potty I got stage fright, bearing in mind I was on the ward with three other people. I couldn’t bloody wee! I could feel it not far away and trying to push but nothing happened. I sat there for about 1/2 hour until it came.

The nurse came to get me for the operation and wheeled me down the corridor to the operating theatre. I felt a little scared at this point all on my own, and said to myself “be a big girl; it will be fine.” It was a very weird feeling knowing I was going to be put to sleep, all trust had to go into the doctors who were going to fix me. There was only one way to go and that was thought the theatre door and to the promised room of drugs on the other side.

As the nurse anesthetised me she told to me to have sweet dreams.

Swoosh whoosh, I was snowboarding down a never-ending half pipe feeling ace big wide carves up the sides, then boom… I was back in the room. Opened my eyes and could see a nurse behind a desk on the far side of the room, I shouted out to her in a tone of complete chuffed-ness with myself, like I had achieved it “I was dreaming!.. about snowboarding.” Then my jaw stared to erratically jitter. The nurse asked me if I was cold, “no I’m good, don’t worry about me” I said, very blasé with a grin.

11pm: The operation was a success with no complications. A titanium rod had been fixed in my leg form the hip to the knee.

I hear of more snow in Scotland and get excited by the thought that I can go there when I get back to the UK – realisation kicks in and I remember why I’m leaving Austria in the first place.

I had been so stoked for this season. Heel Edge Project is a really exciting venture and it was really progressive riding with a group of girls all pushing it hard together.

Two weeks and one day after I snapped my femur in half the plane takes off and tears well in my eyes. A low cloud sits shadowing over the mountains, which helps a little as we rise to 38,000 ft. Feel like I am unfairly being wrenched away from people and a place I love, where dreams are possible and excitement lies.

Despite all this I feel more determined that ever; physically broken but mentally more inspired than ever to get back next season riding with the girls.

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