by Penny Nolte
I’m lying down, face up, flat on my back. While the ground below and the trees above whisk by at alarming speed. My leg is propped up on a pack, and I’m wrapped in a blanket in case shock sets in. I understand well why that is necessary, because of my experience on the ski patrol during college. Which included many practice rides while playing the patient in toboggans piloted by new patrollers tentatively learning to steer the cumbersome sleds downhill. This time, though, I am the patient for real and the sled is piloted by an expert weaving and bumping through uneven terrain as other skiers look, or try not to look, at us.
I knew my ACL was toast, I had heard the distinctive “Pop.” I had been standing at the top of the hill at the time, by the big map that shows all the trails. I knew the trails like the back of my hand and was looking forward to skiing something, anything, with our visitors who were taking their sweet time, chatting and enjoying the beautiful early-March day.
~~
Suddenly, I’m hit from behind by something big moving fast, and I’m knocked awkwardly to the ground. I can’t see what it was, but I hear snippets of conversations.
“Red Jump Suit….”
“Didn’t even stop….”
“She went that way!”
And my husband takes off after the skier. A stranger beside me keeps offering a hand up and I can tell I’m not going to be able to ski down. My knee feels like a puppet cut loose from its string. I roll over and click the skis off with my poll.
I’m kind of in the way. It’s a busy Saturday and people who want to look at the map keep getting off the new quad, crowding us. My guests know enough about first aid not to try to move me, but I try to stand anyway and, just as I thought, the knee won’t support me at all. Each time it slides painfully to one side or the other.
At last, a ski patroller arrives and asks what happened. “You should have gotten their name” he advises us, and of course we explain that was what my husband was doing. After demonstrating for the patroller that I could not stand he walks, slowly it seems to me, to the shed and gets a toboggin ready. I hoist myself in and he asks if I would like to lie down or sit up. “I’ll lie down, thanks.” I realize, as he straps me in and off we go, that this is the first real ski injury I’ve had in 50 odd years. There was a snowboarder, once, who plowed into me on a big powder day. They hadn’t stopped, either, but I was able to ski away from that impact.
Thinking people would probably pay for the ride I’m getting, I notice how at ground level we seem to be going over the headwall much faster than it feels when skiing. When I’m skiing, time stands still and the terrain comes to me at a pace of my choosing. Now, I am not choosing the pace, or the terrain. We are whooshing down with snow from the patroller’s skis washing lightly over me in arcs, making beautiful rainbows form in the bright sunlight.
We get to the bottom and of course I still can’t stand and need help getting into the patrol room. My visitors have come down, too, but head back out to ski after my husband joins me. Another patroller takes it from there and helps me out of my ski pants and rolls up the long underwear. My knee is the size of a grapefruit and growing. Strangely, it doesn’t hurt anymore unless I put weight on it, which everyone who examines me wants me to try. “Nope, it won’t hold me,” I wince confirmation, and then I get to sit down again.
I’m splinted in foamcore, an improvement over the cardboard and cloth slings we handmade in my patrol days. My husband tells us he did catch up with the skier in the red jumpsuit, who turned out to be a teenage girl. She sat down in the snow and spoke into her phone. This drew the girl’s relative who was soon on the scene asking what was going on.
“She knocked my wife over, who was injured. She didn’t even stop.” My husband said, indicating the girl, “I need a name and address.”
“No, you don’t,” said the relative.
“I do, it’s required.”
Eventually, the man grudgingly gave his name and phone number. The girl only gave her first name. My ski patroller, hearing the story, nodded sympathetically. “Yes, I know them,” was all he said.
~~
My season was over, maybe forever, I thought. Both MCL and ACL were totally detached, as I had guessed. The orthopedic surgeon surprisingly did not recommend surgery, explaining that at my advanced age it was unlikely to be a permanent fix. I was fitted with a leg brace and sent to PT for the rest of the year, wondering the whole time if I would ever ski again.
Winter finally came back and while initially cautious on the bunny slopes, and distracted by my lumpy brace, I got used to it. What do you know, I could still ski and it was such a heavenly feeling. I cherished every moment of that day, and I vowed never to take the ability to spend time doing the sport I love, or for that matter the opportunity to enjoy a beautiful day with friends, for granted again.
About the Author:
Penny Nolte creates gentle narratives of family and place. After a long pause from storytelling her newest work is found in The Avalon Literary Review, Macrame Literary Journal, and Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, among others. Originally from upstate New York Penny now calls the Green Mountains home, where she is an adjunct instructor at the Community College of Vermont.