DUDE....That ain't no ski jump, that's my head!!!

Ok, today was the wackiest wreck I ever went to. Here's the story:

I was told to take a pop fence down to the bottom of a run and close off a part of it. I grab my 40 feet of fence and head on down the trail called Schoolmarm. Such a nice sweet sounding name for a ski trail. I mean come on, what could happen on Schoolmarm.

Well.......As I ski down a guy waves to me and I stop. "What's up", I say. He tells me his brother, a snowboarder, fell and hurt his shoulder and he's in a lot of pain. I toss the fence that I'm carrying and begin getting a medical history and event history. Patrollers usually do this while still in their skis and just a bit away from the patient. Gotta think about your safety first.

So I find out he injured his shoulder and that's it. I radio up to PHQ that I came across an injured person and I need rig (sled) to take him to the medical center. At this point I go to get out of my skis but I still ask him more questions. As I get one ski off I notice out of my left eye that a young boy on a snowboard is coming right at my patient like a bolt of lightening. Before I could say anything, the little boy hits my guy square in the head. He not only hits him in the head but rides over the top of his head too. The kid lands falling about 20 feet from my guy. I was shocked.

Now my patient is screaming really loud. Not only does he have a serious shoulder injury but now he has a a huge laceration to the top of his head that makes him look like he's wearing a toupee. I yell at the kid that he needs to stay right there and I then see his dad and tell him to go to his son and don't leave. I then go to my patient who is screaming bloody murder and check his head. It was so bloody and the cut so huge that I couldn't believe my eyes. The guy's freaking out because of all the blood but I tell him that it's nothing that head injuries bleed a lot.

By now the second patroller shows up and I get her to get info on the boy and the dad. We treat all collisions like car wrecks. I tell my patient that I just want to get him down to a doc so I'm just going to bandage his head and not do anything with his shoulder. I get him to self splint his shoulder while I and his brother get him into the rig. At this point I ski him to the clinic fast.

When I last saw my patient he was getting his head shaved, x-rays and about 60-70 stitches. The father of the boy couldn't believe that we were getting his info and just kept saying, hey my boy was trying to stop. I saw the whole thing and that boy was out of control and I would say if he didn't hit my patient he would have hit some trees and that would have been a huge mess.

So that's just an average day at dear old Keystone. Well, tomorrow is another day and I'll try to find another wreck that beats that one.

Gulp!!!