School Bus. Hollywood Boulevard. Fire Truck.

The doctor at Snowbird said, “I’m going to ask you to recall these phrases in a few minutes,” while she continued to talk to me about concussion symptoms. About 5 minutes in to the conversation she stopped and asked, “Do you remember those three things?”

School Bus. Hollywood Boulevard. Fire Truck.

That’s apparently how they determined that I didn’t scramble my brain completely, so they discharged me with a closed head injury but no immediate signs of concussion or other serious injury, and gave me a list of trauma centers in the SLC area just in case I started convulsing later that afternoon. They also recommended that I do a follow-up with a specialist after I returned home, just to be safe.

I kind of remember being surrounded red jackets, and some of the field tests they administered: could I move my feet and hands (yes), could I apply opposing resistance with my feet and hands (yes), could I feel it when they touch my cheek (yes), could I follow their motion with my eyes (probably not), could I speak coherently (I doubt it). There was blood around me, from where I had bit my tongue a little bit, which fortunately was the only part of me that was in any immediate discomfort. I kind of remember it but not really; like a dream that didn’t really happen. The neck brace, the back board, bundled up and carried off the mountain on that ski patrol sled.

Before that, I remember lining up for a pretty mellow drop under the Peruvian lift. And then nothing.

We had just taken a little break for lunch, and were back out on the front side of Snowbird for a few more laps on the last day of our trip. Chip’s Run and the adjacent trails were overflowing with natural hits in all shapes and sizes, and even in the spring corn — it was over 50 degrees that day and by 2:30pm everything was pretty soft — almost everything was prime and landings weren’t totally bombed out.

From the top I made a big slash, took a side hit to tail grab, and hugged the track left, keeping an eye out for one of the larger in-bounds rock formations. The “big” side of this one was off-limits unless you like landing in mogul fields, which I don’t, so I took the line to skier’s right and dropped it, no problem.

I missed the entry point for the next feature I wanted, a little field-goal style pop between some small pine trees in a kinda-sorta roped off section. We stayed right on Chip’s Run where it splits with Chip’s Bypass to revisit a little drop we’d hit two days earlier, right under one of the lift towers.

Joe trailed me as I pulled up above it and came to a stop just to give it the old once over (sometimes these things look way gnarlier when you’re sitting right on top of them), but it looked fine, still, and we had hit it before so it should’ve been no big deal.

I pointed it and shimmied a bit forward, my intention to pop off the ledge and just tweak out a grab. Nothing fancy.That’s the last thing I remember before the red ski patrol jackets.

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As it turns out, despite having been pounded by sun all afternoon the approach was boilerplate. On that little bit of ice, I barely lost my toe edge. I may or may not have nicked a bit of the shrubbery with my heel edge, which may or may not have mattered, right about when I was trying to correct for lost edge, when I should’ve been loading up the ollie… however it went down, I didn’t get a controlled pop over the edge and even with my feet underneath me, I slipped out on the “landing” and whiplashed backwards in to the ground. I slid probably a good 100 yards or so before Joe caught up to me and he was able to stay with me until patrol arrived to take over the scene.

My helmet did what it was supposed to do, and took all the impact. So, closed head injury or not it could’ve been much worse had I not been wearing my lid.

I was pretty sore, mostly in my back and through my core and hips, for about 3 days after. My neck never really felt that “whiplash” or stiffness that I was expecting, so I guess that’s good. And no headaches.

The doctors here at home say yes, I have had a concussion and some side effects of concussion syndrome may last a few days or even a few weeks, but otherwise the prognosis is good. Hopefully I will be good to go for Cinqo de Mayo at Cannonsburg in a few weeks, because I don’t want to miss that event!

While the whole experience was pretty sobering, I wasn’t riding beyond my ability, taking extraordinary risks, nor going bigger than I’m accustomed to. It was all pretty par for the course. That’s what’s the most humbling about it: I could’ve just as easily lost an edge or hooked on a push pile, reverse scorpion on a groomer to the same result. I’m not saying I’m not afraid of getting hurt, but I understand this was a freak accident, and I have to measure that accordingly.

I’d hit it again tomorrow, if I could.

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