As Snowboarding Popularity Soars, Injuries Multiply

Shelby Ganitch is hardly your daredevil snowboarder, her family says. The Irvine Valley College freshman was simply carving her way down the mountain three weeks ago at Snow Summit ski resort when she caught an edge and pitched head-first onto the hard-packed snow. She’s been in a coma ever since.

“She’s 18 but she looks like she’s 10 years old lying there with all the tubes sticking out of her,” said her father, Richard, who along with his wife and daughter has kept a vigil at Shelby’s side.

Snowboard injuries--many of them to the head or spine like Shelby’s--are on the rise in Southern California, where more young enthusiasts surf the slopes than anywhere else in the country.

At the four major Southland ski resorts, serious injuries from snowboarding have increased to 134 last year from nine in 1996, according to a study by the San Bernardino County Medical Center, which serves as the major trauma ward for the resorts. The medical costs for treating these injuries has topped $4 million, hospital officials say.

Doctors characterized many of the injuries as occurring when snowboarders attempted high-risk aerial maneuvers.

The snowboard accident trend shows little sign of subsiding. In just the first two months of this year, there have been 57 serious snowboarding injuries, putting it on a record-setting pace. With spring break around the corner, ski resorts are expecting a final assault on the slopes in the next few weeks, and doctors are fretting about the accompanying injuries.

Despite the high number of snowboarding accidents and calls from doctors and parents for tougher safety regulations for the sport, ski resort operators say there is little they can do, other than urging snowboarders to be more cautious. State legislators have so far resisted stepping in as well.

“You start requiring people to wear specialized equipment and institute a whole lot of government regulations, you’re going to take the joy out of the sport,” said Assemblyman Rico Oller (R--San Andreas), who represents the Lake Tahoe area, a popular snow-sport destination.

That doesn’t satisfy doctors and parents who point to the mounting number of snowboard injuries, not just in Southern California but around the country. Such injuries nearly tripled in four years, with head injuries increasing fivefold, according to a study by the U.S. Consumer Safety Products Commission.

“Catastrophic injuries are far too common in this sport,” said Dr. John Steinman, a spinal cord injury specialist, who is one of the doctors conducting the San Bernardino County hospital study and believes resorts should outlaw certain aerial maneuvers and monitor the angle of snowboard jumps.

Millions of people snowboard and ski each year, and to be sure, the overall number of injuries compared with those who participate in the downhill sports is minuscule.

Many more people throughout the country ski than snowboard--a ratio of about 80% to 20%--so far more are injured skiing.

But the gap between skiing and snowboarding accidents is narrowing dramatically. Skiing injuries have dropped 26% between 1993 and 1997, in large part because of better-built ski equipment, while snowboarding injuries have tripled.

In Southern California, where snowboarders account for more than 60% of ticket sales at area resorts, far more are injured boarding. San Bernardino County Medical Center doctors tallied nearly 300 snowboarding injuries over the last three years. By comparison, only 50 skiing accidents required hospital care during the same period.

The explosive growth in the sport’s popularity is only one of many reasons for the alarming injury trend, industry observers say, noting that injuries have far outpaced the increase in the sport’s participation.

Other factors include the prevalence of the sport among risk-taking youth, the sport’s emphasis on spectacular aerial tricks, as well as the tendency for snowboarders, especially in Southern California, to board on less-forgiving, man-made snow.

“These kids come from a skateboard/surf mentality: Let’s go big, the bigger the better,” said Karl Kapuscinski, general manager of the Mountain High Ski Resort.

Humble Beginnings to Popular Pastime

Snowboarding got its start in 1963 when an eighth-grader in New Jersey, Tony Sims, was credited with building a contraption for shop class called a “ski board.” Sims eventually formed a company to manufacture the board. Three years after Sims, Sherman Poppen patented the Snurfer--two skis bolted together. The Snurfer became the first mass-produced version of the snowboard, retailing for $15. Today, a top-of-the-line snowboard can cost $500 or more.

It is only within the last decade, however, that the sport has gained widespread acceptance and popularity around the world. Resort owners who previously banned the boarders now depend on them for an increasing chunk of their revenues and have even begun to actively court them.

The sport also is beginning to shed its young, countercultural image, now attracting adherents from all age groups, industry observers say.

Snowboarding made a controversial debut in the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. Its first gold medalist was temporarily stripped of his medal after testing positive for traces of marijuana.

With the sport now a fixture at most slopes, the ski industry is thinking more and more about safety.

Kapuscinski is part of a group of California resort operators who have met over the last year to study how the industry might balance the increasing demands of the participants with the need for safety.

“There’s no question we’re grappling with the issue,” said Bob Roberts, executive director of the California Ski Industry Assn. “Building judgment into our clientele is an extreme challenge.”

San Bernardino County Medical Center began tracking snowboard injuries after treating a string of significant spinal cord injuries and head injuries among snowboarders in 1996.

Ski resort operators, however, are resistant to any kind of helmet requirement.

Helmets often give individuals a false sense of security and a license to be even more aggressive, said Stacy Gardner, a spokeswoman for the National Ski Areas Assn., which represents ski resorts across the country. The ski association recommends only that skiers and boarders “consider wearing” helmets as one of many safety considerations.

But many are taking the suggestion seriously. Helmet sales grew 267% during the 1997-1998 ski season, with nearly a quarter-million helmets sold, according to SnowSports Industries America. Overall, however, only 5% of skiers and snowboarders wear them, the trade group said.

More worrisome than head injuries, hospital officials say, is the growth in severe spinal cord injuries, typically suffered in attempts to perform acrobatic tricks.

Just a week before Shelby Ganitch’s accident, Brett Johnson, 32, a former professional snowboarder from Marina del Rey, went out to the slopes after a long layoff to “try to relive the glory.” He attempted a “backside 540,” an aerial trick that involves an extra half turn beyond a 360, but ended up landing flat on his chest and fracturing his neck. He is recovering at home, wearing a neck and shoulder brace.

“I just tried to do something I shouldn’t have done,” he said.

Despite the number of serious injuries, Southland resorts have so far had no fatal accidents, although a 14-year-old boy died about a year ago from injuries suffered after he strayed from a Mountain High trail and became lost. Farther north at Mammoth Ski Resort, a snowboarder surfing out of bounds died two months ago when he hit a rock.

There have been 23 snowboarding deaths across the country since 1991, compared with 231 skiing deaths, according to another study by Jasper Healy, an industrial engineer from Rochester Institute of Technology.

But snowboarding fatalities have increased as the sport has grown.

Between 1993 and 1997, the number of people who snowboard increased from 1.8 million to 2.5 million, providing the snow-sport industry with a much needed boost, according to the National Sporting Goods Assn.

The sport’s growth translates into more boarders on the slopes with minimal experience, said Jay Reed, a spokesman for Snow Valley Ski Resort.

“You have beginning snowboarders, and they’re trying to do stuff they aren’t qualified to do,” he said.

Helmets recently were mandated for all amateur competitions, he said. They also are worn during most professional competitions.

The trend toward helmets among competitive snowboarders provides hope that the entire sport might move in that direction, said Ken Martin, president of the Southern California branch of the United States Amateur Snowboarding Assn.

But currently, no states mandate helmets.

Richard Ganitch, Shelby’s father, wishes California had such a law.

“I had no idea of the rate of head and neck injuries,” he said.

Had she been wearing a helmet, he said, “my daughter would be snowboarding today.”