Falling is a terrible feeling when you’re not expecting it. You realize you run out of ground, your gut wrenches and your arms start instinctively flapping like you want to fly; but, that doesn’t help. In the air, all you can think about is how you’re going to land and think: “Oh crap!”
Every year my family goes skiing during February brake. Each year we go to a different place with our friends. They vacation with us everywhere. One year we went with the Fairfield Ski Club to Orford. The club goes there annually, and since there were some of my friends in the club, our family decided to go there too.
It was the 4th day of our skiing trip when it happened. I was with a group of my friends. We were on the easiest trail of the mountain and because they had been there before they knew that all the fun forest paths that were off of that main trail. On the map, the trail was called 4km. There were a lot of people learning how to ski on it; but, not so much that you couldn’t whiz down it nor pop out into the open from a forest trail. My friends were weaving in and out of the trails. This led me to think that they knew what they were doing. So I decided to take one of the trails. The trail I took led up steeply and I expected it to slope down any moment; but instead, it just flattened out. I was just pushing myself forward, when all of a sudden I started to fall.
My skis tipped down and popped off as I hit the ground. It broke my fall a little; but, propelled me straight into the ground. It resulted in landing face first into the hard, icy, cold, packed, and dirty snow. As soon as I stopped sliding on the ground, I tried to get up and walk to my skis, but, instead I walked for two of the longest steps I’ve ever taken. My head was spinning I felt like throwing-up. I veered from side to side like you do if you’re really dizzy. Then my feet slid from underneath me, as I tilted too far to the left, and I landed straight on my hip. I stayed down for about two seconds; but, then I felt something. Blood.
When I felt the blood, I jolted up and took in my surroundings. I was on an icy slope in Canada, on the narrowest part of the easiest trail on the mountain. I knew no one in the crowd gathering around me and couldn’t recognize anyone skiing past me. So, I stood there pointing my nose out of my balaclava while trying not get blood on my coat, but without effect. I started to cry. I was in so much pain. I was so confused, my whole world was spinning. I was just in so much pain I couldn’t take it. After about a minute, two people I knew saw me. They gasped after seeing how bloody I was and how much I was crying. A long minute passed before before another person I knew came. The first two people went to get the ski patrol. One of the other persons I knew well was named Josh Salazar. He talked to me while blood was gushing out of my nostrils. Josh was trying to calm me down and I’m was grateful for that. If he had not done that I probably would have kept on yelling and screaming for help to people that only spoke french. Josh asked how I fell and how I felt. Mainly he just talked to me. Talking to him made my headache go down a little and it made me stop crying. After about 3 minutes with Josh, another man came down. He saw me and told me to put snow on my nose. He also stayed with me. Putting snow on my nose made the bleeding stop almost instantaneously. That me realize that I wasn’t going to bleed to death. When ski patrol arrived, I was already felling a little better from talking to Josh and the man whose name was never mentioned. Ski patrol asked several questions about my family so they could tell them what happened to me and find them. After a little while someone went down to get my family. Another of the ski patrol offered to take me down in the emergency sled. I refused because I wanted to go down myself. I know that it may sound ridiculous to refuse help; but, I needed to prove to myself that I was okay and that I would be able to ski again.
I started down the mountain on my own skis. I thought: “I will never do something this stupid and ridiculous again.” I further thought that I needed to look before I leap, to think before I act, and to always use the buddy system. I’ve stuck to that oath and now I believe that it has kept me out of a lot of sticky situations. I think I’ve taken steps to make sure to always be cautious before doing something even remotely dangerous so as to make sure I don’t re-experience that pain and terrible felling of falling again.