March 1969

The day had gone well for me.  I had just finished first in a ski race and I was heading down for the day.  My friend, T.K. Rowhan, who was not in the day’s race decided to join me on my last run down.  In late March, nearing the end of the season, a number of runs were already showing bare dirt; so, we had to pick the best runs to get us down without tearing our skis up in the process.

 As we cleared the midway chairlift station we headed straight down Baby Doe.  Near the bottom of Baby Doe someone had spread some straw to cover rocks and dirt right where the stream crossed the run.  This time of year, every year, the stream began to run melting the snow in the process.  Seeing the straw, I did not give it much thought as I sped up.  When I hit the bottom my skies stopped dead in their tracks and my momentum carried me on.      

In an instant I was thrown out of my skies as I continued to summersault down the run and out onto Homestead Road.  When I came to rest I knew something was wrong.  Although I could move my toes, my leg was laying there in a position that was not normal.  My right foot was bent back with my toes pointed straight at my face, just inches away.  I knew then that I had broken my leg.

Laying there, waiting for the patrol to come get me, I asked T.K. to loosen my boot as it was really starting to hurt.  As he bent over he could see a large bump in my ski pants just above my boot. “What’s that?” as he bent down to touch it. “Oh, that can’t be good!” as he went to unbuckle my boot.  A man standing near by shouted, “Stop! It looks broken and you could make it worse.”

I am not sure how long it took for the Ski Patrol to show up.  It seemed like forever, but in reality I am sure it was only a few minutes as their lower patrol shack was only a couple hundred feet back up the mountain.  They carefully bundled me up and placed me in the toboggan for my journey to Aspen Valley Hospital.  The hospital was located at the base of Red Mountain and the time it took to get me there was plenty long enough for my mother and Doctor Baxter to arrive before me.

Doctor Baxter had x-rays taken and quickly determined that I had a compound fracture of the Tibia and a spiral break of the fibula.  The Tibia had just broken the skin but was not clearly sticking out.  Heavily sedated, Doctor Baxter put a large plaster cast on my leg that ran from just above my toes all the way up to just under my butt. 

I spent the night in the hospital sharing a room with Ollie Westerland.  As it turned out he had suffered the same fate as me while skiing at Highlands.  My break was good enough that I had to wear casts for the next seven months.  They did not slow me down much during the summer as I broke a number of them while riding my bicycle or climbing the crab apple tree in our front yard. 

Still sporting a cast the following fall when I returned to school, I was immediately harassed as if I was wearing the cast for sympathy from my classmates.  When I finally got the last cast removed everyone knew just how bad it was.  The bone had healed slightly crooked and you could still see where it almost came out of my skin.   Needless to say, I was back skiing and racing that following season.