Memorably Forgettable Memorial Day

Memorial Day 2011 was to be one of the best that I ever had with Snowbird getting almost a foot of fresh powder... yeah, things started out really slow.

Wren and I had to wait about an hour and a half to even get on a chair. Once things got going, it was great! Found this little gem on ksl.com. Yup, that snowboarder was thoroughly enjoying the fresh powder! Even with a couple of nose dive induced cartwheels, it was a really fun day. 

Then they opened up Mineral Basin, things were just getting better... for a minute at least. A few runs of blower powder and we made the decision to go to the Little Cloud lift... that proved not to be the best decision for me. We were cruisin down, getting after the chopped up pow all crazy like. I spotted a roller that looked like it would be a perfect ten to fifteen foot air; I bombed it. Ninety five nine percent of the time I check my landing before just bombing something. I don't know why, but this time I just went for it. BAD idea.  I popped off the top of the roller, going about thirty miles per hour and looked down to spot my landing and saw nothing but car sized jagged boulders.I literally thought "I'm going to die". About a second later I was able to rotate my board (brand new Never Summer Proto CTx #cringe) so that it hit the boulders first... then impact. Board hit the first boulder and bucked me into the next one (which was later described by Wren as "the gnarliest boulder" of the bunch). When I hit the first thing that went through my mind was this video. I have no idea why. The very next thought was "This isn't real". Next I tumbled over a few more death boulders and over what felt like a ten foot rocky drop and ended up in the sitting position. My thought right then was "I'm so lucky that I'm just dreaming right now. All I need to do is wake up." Then the pain settled in and I realized this is very much real. Somewhere during my wee tumble my helmet came unbuckled. It didn't slip off cause it was too loose, it was actually unbuckled. I should probably email Burton about that... oh well. 

So I'm sitting there, wind knocked out of me, making that awful noise that really hurt people make (think dying walrus or something), I'm watching my helmet roll down the mountain and thinking how stupid that was. Next thought was "How does my snowboard look?" BIG time shout out to Never Summer Snowboards, my deck was almost completely perfect. Definitely held up their durability reputation on this one. One deep pinhole in the base and that's it. Amazing considering how hard I slammed that board into the rocks.

My friends, Brian and Wren were able to get ski patrol up there and to do their thing. Keith, the guy in charge of ski patrol was really good, took control and made sure I was as comfortable as I could be. Since they were worried about my organs looking like mashed potatoes they made me ride the toboggan straight to the ambulance. The EMT's were really good too. Once inside, they cranked the heat up for me since I was apparently shivering really bad and they sweat their guts out so I would be comfortable. 

The hospital wasn't messin around either. They sent me straight to "Trauma Bay 1" or some official name like that. Once inside they were just dying to cut my clothes off, but I wouldn't let them destroy all my gear, I made them take it off, ha ha. Normally I think it would probably be pretty cool to be in a room full of women undressing me as quickly as possible, this scenario however, was not that cool. 

After about a dozen x-rays, multiple CT's and a handful of MRI's they were able to determine that I had a shattered left elbow (radial head), lacerated spleen, bruised kidneys and liver, gnarly bruise on my left flank (love handle), sprained right ankle and a severely jammed right thumb. They stabilized me and all that junk, and about six hours later I was going in for elbow surgery. Crazy.

Here's me right after surgery, apparently I thought I was really funny. I was quoting Anchorman, ha ha!

My Trauma Team and all my nurses at Intermountain Medical Center were awesome. I liked them all, even though they labeled me a "Fall Risk", which I found amusing, considering how I ended up there.

All in all I spent two nights and three days inpatient at IMC. During that time I had a ton of friends and family come see me. That is pretty humbling to see that many people taking time out of their lives to come visit a drugged up dude who talks too much. I am truly lucky to have that many awesome people in my life.
At home, the awesome people kept coming. Friends and neighbors bringing dinner, family helping with the yard work (thanks Jake!), "grown up" sitting, and just hanging out with me to keep me entertained. Thanks everyone!
Then there is my awesome wife has been the worlds best caretaker. She keeps me fed, puts up with my orneriness and always makes sure I have my pain meds when I need them. Thanks Michelle!

Lessons learned: I have amazing people in my life and I need to be better about showing appreciation to them...and... ALWAYS CHECK YOUR LANDING!!!