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Painful Encounters of the Alpine Kind
Painful Encounters of the Alpine Kind
It was the last run of the day. Mary and I had been skiing since 9:30 a.m. It was cold. We had maybe eight or nine runs under our belts, and we were ready to pack it in.
In order to get back to our ski-on, ski-off condo on the mountain, we had to do a little traversing. At one point, we were on top of a ridge, looking down over a ski lift line. If we skied down the basin and kept to the left we could scoot between the lodge and the ski lift, running behind the line of skiers waiting to get back up the mountain.
We had to build up enough speed coming down the hill in order to gather enough momentum to get back up the other side.
Mary went first, going straight down the hillside like a bat out of hell, and I followed a few seconds behind her. She made it through the narrow area between the lift and the lodge with no problem. However, when I came upon that same narrow passage, suddenly a family of skiers heading the opposite direction, swung onto the trail and filled it completely.
There were four of them, two parents and two kids, all skiing abreast, of each other (which is stupid). They were moving as fast as I was, and they were heading directly for me. They had the whole trail blocked. There was no place for me to go. There was going to be crash.
It is amazing how fast the mind works in situations like this. I remember seeing them swing into the passageway. I remember calculating that they must have been traveling about the same speed that I was, which was approximately thirty miles an hour. That meant, we would collide at a combined speed of about sixty miles per hour.
I was heading straight for the young wife/mother. I remember thinking, Critical mass in three point zero seconds, and There’s no way I’m going miss her, and Oh man! This is REALLY going to hurt!
She looked up at me. Her eyes got as big as saucers, and her mouth formed a perfect "O" as in "Oh shit!"
When I knew there was no way to avoid the crash, I threw my ski poles to one side. I didn’t want one of them to accidentally pierce the oncoming body. I then threw my arms open wide so that I could grab her upon impact to lessen the blow to her smaller body. (Again, this all happened in nano-seconds. From the moment the family swung onto the trail until the actual collision took place, perhaps three seconds passed.)
We crashed.
She must have been moving faster than I was, because, even though she was much smaller, the force of her body hitting mine knocked me over on my back. I instantly wrapped my arms around her to keep her with me, and, as I went over backwards, she came down on top of me, with my body acting as a cushion for hers against the hard ground. Then she bounced off.
I remember hitting the ground hard with her on top of me. I remember the sudden impact blasting all of the wind out of my lungs. I remember lying there on the ground for a few seconds with my eyes closed trying to catch my breath.
At least a full minute elapsed before I could breathe again. Then I opened my eyes and became aware that people were standing over me and yelling, "Are you okay? Are you okay?" I tried to move my legs. They moved. I tried to move my arms. They also responded as they should.
"I’m all right," I told them.
As I attempted to get to my feet, my first question was, "Where’s the woman I collided with? Is she okay?" She came forward from the crowd. She was crying with fear as she said, "I’m the one who hit you! I’m so sorry!"
I told her that nobody was to blame. That she had nothing to be sorry about. We were both okay.
Mary missed the whole thing. She was waiting for me up on the ridge. The only reason she knew something had gone wrong was because my back was covered with snow.
By the time that we made it back to the condo, my shoulder was throbbing. Mary asked me if I wanted to take two ibuprophens. I opted for two Coronas instead.
That did the trick.
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posted on Mar 31, 2008 5:45 AM ()
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