Print

Mail

wiki links

Skier hopes to race again after devastating accident

US skier Dane Spencer recovers in a Kalispell, Montana, hospital a few days after a ski racing accident on Feb. 14 at Big Mountain in Whitefish, Montana, in which he broke his neck and pelvis. In early May, Spencer, 28, was cleared to walk again and now he's mulling a comeback to fulfill his dream of winning a World Cup ski race. PHOTO: AP

Dane Spencer plunged out of the clouds at more than 110kph. It was Feb. 14, a foggy day at the Big Mountain ski resort in northwestern Montana, and Spencer, a member of the US ski team, was trying to win a downhill race.

Spencer, then 28, swooped toward a jump where skiers routinely fly more than 30m.

Jim Dusing, an emergency physician from nearby Kalispell, watched as Spencer hit the jump.

"When he left the ground, I could tell he wasn't going to be able to land that one," Dusing said.

Spencer awoke five days later to a new world filled with pain, fear and drug-induced confusion.

He had broken his neck in the landing, shattering the cervical spine at the C2 vertebra, an often fatal injury that is known as a hangman's fracture.

But the fragments of Spencer's spine spread outward, away from the spinal cord, saving him from possible paralysis.

He was rushed to a hospital, where doctors treated massive internal bleeding from a pelvic fracture and a partly blown-out lung.

Critical to his recovery, they screwed a metal halo device into Spencer's skull and anchored it to his chest.

"We didn't know if he could do normal things like walk, to turn his neck side to side, or swallow," said Jasmine Furnish, Spencer's longtime girlfriend.

For Spencer, the next month was physically and emotionally painful. He suffered terrible pain from his pelvis injury and had to rely on others for baths and food.

A month after the accident, Spencer had five hours of surgery.

"The bones were basically just flopping in the breeze," lead surgeon Christian Zimmerman said.

In the month after the operation, Spencer was kept immobile and counted down the minutes between pain pills, Furnish said.

But by May, Spencer's pelvis had healed enough for him to bear weight and from that moment, he was irrepressible, Furnish said.

On Nov. 9, Spencer returned to skiing. He is now working to get back into shape with the aim of resuming his racing career.
This story has been viewed 1677 times.