After a fair amount of time sat around recovering and then trying my hardest to get back to the level I used to be at skiing, I’m starting to feel like I’m getting there. I’ve been back skiing just over a year now and wanted to put down on paper what my knee injury entailed, from the pain, the surgeries, the friends that are always there. To the desire to get back up and do what you love and make the most of what you have. There are going to be 4 parts to this story, the final part has not happened yet. So I’ll start here… at the beginning.
February 16th 2009, Rob Embling, Charlie Smith, Ally Watson and I were in the Zillertal valley. After picking up our passes for the next 3 days the weather was not what we’d hoped. At least it was snowing but flat light meant filming anywhere but trees was off the cards.
We opted for the tiny resort of Ramsberg. Now Ramsberg has only few lifts and is mainly used as a tobagganing hill, but at the top of the mountain there is a section of trees which will leave you thinking your in Japan.
It was one of the sickest days we’d had in quite a while we all managed to get some shots. After a short break for some hot dog soup at the Kleine Berghhutte we headed back out to get a few more shots for the movie. Ally went and made the row of avalanche barriers look like tiny picket fenches, smashing his way down the double stager of wooden obstacles.
On the chair ride I spotted what I thought was a nice little pillow line that came out between two trees. I thought it would look sick if shot from the right angle and I had the image in my mind of how it would go. I told Rob what I was thinking, he didn’t really see it but he just said, “Whatever, go for it mate…”. He got into position and I dropped in.
The snow was giving way more than I’d hoped and I could feel my speed slipping away. I straightened up my line and popped as hard as I could, however gravity got the better of me. Rather than taking my diagonal line like I wanted I was drifting toward one of the exit trees. Now from here on I don’t really remember much until opening my eyes sitting straight up with what felt like a bust lip on the other side of the tree. Charlie and Ally were shouting my name asking if I was Ok, which at first I felt I was. Once I’d tried moving it was a different story all together. I felt a shooting pain through my right knee, I tried to stand up a little but it just gave way immediately so sacked that one off straight away. After pulling myself together a little bit I slid down to where the guys had gathered.
I knew hiking out was never going to happen and I couldn’t get my right leg into a ski, Ally managed to clip me into one of my skis and like a champion stallion started pulling me out towards the piste. After a short incline it was time for more ass sliding down and then the last 50 metres I managed to straight line one ski it to the piste before breaking down and having a moment.
Now up until this point I hadn’t pulled my trouser leg up as I had visions of Eddie ‘Slavemonkey’ Thelwells kneecap smasher of 2008. I lifted up my trouser leg and saw that my knee was starting to swell up, I had a small graze on the side of my knee and a sharp pain if I tried to bend it. Charlie had gone off to grab the piste patrol who arrived promptly and after a few hickups I was on the gondola back down.
After getting to the bottom of the lift, Rob was on hand to bring round the White Knight and whisk me off the the Doctors.
I hobbled my way inside and with a little persuasion, in the form of flashing off my newly watermelon sized knee, the doctor agreed to X-Ray me. The prognosis was in and it was that I’d fractured my Patella. At this point, as well as being supremely gutted, the relief was there after finally knowing what was wrong, so without any more hesitation an ambulance to Schwaz hospital was ordered in.
That’s the end of part one, here is the ‘Ello, it’s was our first movie from UNITY so please have a watch and see how far we’ve come over the past few years.
http://www.zapiks.com/ello-unity-productions.html
End Part One…
