Safety : Ski Patrol to the Rescue

“Don’t break a leg,” my non-skiing friends would say as I headed off on a ski trip. “That’s just a myth,” I would respond, thinking they had been overly influenced by those New Yorker cartoons showing a skier with his leg in a cast sitting by the lodge fireplace with a glass of cognac in hand.

Then I joined the Ski Patrol and learned that people do injure their legs while skiing--and their arms, their heads and especially their knees and thumbs. Some even die.

Jasper E. Shealy, director of the Human Factors Laboratory at the Rochester Institute of Technology, has studied skiing injuries for 24 years. He estimates the United States’ 10 million skiers suffer about 150,000 injuries each season, a third of them to the knee.

The National Ski Areas Assn. reported in May that last season there were 84 skiing accidents resulting in serious injuries, including 41 deaths, nationwide.

Shealy and industry sources have speculated that improvements in equipment and grooming of the snow to remove bumps and icy spots makes it easier for skiers to ski fast, which means they are more seriously injured when they fall.

Shealy says 85% of the people killed in skiing accidents are males, most in their late teens or early 20s--the same age group with the highest death rate in automobile and industrial accidents.

In Europe, injured skiers are assisted by professional rescuers who require payments for their services. In the United States, the National Ski Patrol, which is made up primarily of volunteers, provides this service free at most ski areas.

The Ski Patrol was founded in 1938 by Charles “Minnie” Dole, a skier who had been badly injured in a skiing accident and later lost a friend killed in a ski race.

Today, the Ski Patrol has 25,000 volunteers in 10 regional divisions and 2,000 professionals registered in a separate pro division. Many of the professionals, who undergo the same first-aid training as the volunteers, work at the largest ski areas, especially in the West.

As one of those people who can’t conceive of a vacation without snow and skiing, I had always admired and envied the Ski Patrollers I watched at resorts all over the country. They wear cool uniforms (usually rust and blue for the volunteers), cut in front of the lift line and pull injured skiers down the slopes in toboggans.

It wasn’t until I joined that I realized they also spend a lot of time practicing first aid in the mud and rain before the ski season begins, carrying bamboo poles back and forth to mark trails and explaining to skiers why there are no bathrooms on the back side of the mountain. They have to be on duty at the top of the mountain before 8 a.m. to make sure everything is in order for skiers and after the lifts close late at night for “sweep,” one last run down to look for stragglers.

Patrollers have also taken on more “law enforcement” duties because of an increase in lawsuits brought by injured skiers against ski areas during the ‘80s. Most resorts have developed risk-management programs with stricter rules against skiing out of bounds, jumping and reckless skiing.

Then there is the endless training and testing in first aid, skiing and handling the toboggan used to bring injured skiers off the mountain--including picking up the 60-pound fiberglass sled and carrying it on the chair lift.

Every ski area has its own rules and procedures for the Ski Patrol, which is run by volunteers but must abide by management’s policies. Most ski-area managers realize that the Ski Patrol provides an invaluable service, and they reward its members with such perks as meal tickets and free lift tickets for family members.

The first step in becoming a patroller is usually a “ski-off” on the area’s toughest slopes to choose candidates with the necessary skiing skills. The candidates who pass the ski-off then begin an intensive, 60- to 80-hour course similar to that taken by emergency medical technicians, but with more on skiing and cold-weather-related injuries.

Once candidates have passed the course they begin “S & T,” or ski and toboggan training. The culmination of the process is the dreaded “basic patroller” test of skiing and toboggan handling. Passing the test entitles the new patroller to wear that coveted rust-and-blue parka.

The test is grueling--candidates tend to be on the mountain from early morning until mid-afternoon on the day of the test. But veterans point out that today’s patrollers are really wimps: In the old days, the test culminated with a ritual in which all the new patrollers were required to climb the mountain--with their skis on.

For more information: National Ski Patrol, 133 S. Van Gordon St., Suite 100, Lakewood, Colo. 80228-1706; (303) 988-1111.