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Jake Chandler
Nancy Roche
Writing 1010-013
December 11, 2014

Injuries Among Skiers and Snowboarders

My ankles are broken, my ankles are broken! This is recognized by any skier and most
snowboarders as Tanner Halls yells after attempting to hit Chads Gap, a massive jump
feature found at Alta Ski Resort. Skiing and snowboarding are clearly very risk involving sports.
These two extreme sports bare yourself against the terrain, and many times a night does the
terrain put one of us in the emergency room. These instances have only gotten worse and more
frequent throughout the years. It can only logically be due to the monumental progression these
two sports have seen in the past decade. An article I read called Injuries Among Skiers and
Snowboarders in Quebec, does a good job in detailing and providing information on the topic,
this essay will illustrate the articles main points and my views on them.
The article begins by making clear the struggle of simply gaining accurate information on
how much risk is at play, but they quickly go through their methods of obtaining what was
needed. A few pages of charts are shown providing various specifics from injuries. In my view,
the article stresses on how the number of total injuries found in Quebec between the two sports
steadily increased from 1995 until 2000. Throughout the years the number of injuries between
skiers and snowboarders seem to be pretty equal, but the data shows skiers have slightly more
injuries, this may just be due to differences in popularity however.
The article then goes into depth on specifics such as head and neck, trunk, upper/lower
extremities and collision injuries. The paper details that evidence suggests all these injuries are
becoming more frequent except in the case of collision injuries. For collision injuries, the only

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evidence obtained shows that only snowboarders have recently seen a higher rate of collision. It
is speculated due to its boom in popularity and proportion from 1995(22%) to 2000(29%).
Another factor has to do with the snowboarders environment.
Snowboarders make up the majority of those lapping the terrain parks. Terrain parks are
known to be sometimes hectic and extremely fast paced. The author states this could easily be
the reason for the high collision rate achieved by snowboarders. The introduction of terrain parks
also seem to have affected another category of these injuries, head and neck. Every meter of air
has been proven to increase the susceptibility to a head or neck injury by five times. With this
known, there are little opposing views against correlating the injury with areas that encourage
jumping.
Lastly the paper speaks on forms of protection. Going into depth on various forms and
how successful each are seem to be unnecessary seeing how the evidence stated that any form of
protection from the terrain is greatly beneficial. The paper also makes good points on techniques
only those fluent in the discourse would know about. A good example of this is when the author
speaks on adjusting your bindings. You can adjust your bindings two ways, one by making sure
they are strapped on tight, which is what most would leave it at, but the other way spoken about
is much more knowledgeable. The author speaks on adjusting things like scrub-hooks, baseplates
and other technical terms. Using tools like these are greatly encouraged, not only for safety but
for pleasure as well.
In conclusion I think this article does a fine job in explaining how these sports have
gotten more vigorous and physically draining. A stellar roadmap is provided not only in showing
the trend of injuries over the years but in showing how to prevent these injuries from your sport,
age and race. The information about the protective gear is also very crucial to the paper. It would

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be no good to tell anyone this information without telling them how to further prevent it. These
two sports have undoubtedly gotten more and more dangerous, but with the tools we have at
hand we can still have one more good run!

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Hagel, Brent E., Claude Goulet, Robert W. Platt, and I. Barry Pless. "Injuries Among Skiers and
Snowboarders in Quebec." Epidemiology 15.3 (2004): 279-86. Web.