Worst Day On The Mountain

[Tricia]

Longtime lurker but infrequent poster. But I think I need to tell my story. For the children.
Sunny weekday morning mid-February in 2012. Parked my car at Donovan Park in West Vail, wrestled my way into my stupid Dobermann plugs, hoisted my skis and walked to the bus stop on Matterhorn Drive. There, I promptly fell over dead when my heart stopped beating. A young woman (my angel) waiting at the stop with her sons started chest compressions until an ambulance arrived nearly five minutes later. Apparently, EMTs got a heartbeat after a second shock. Stabilized at Vail Hospital, then choppered unconscious to a Denver Hospital ($31,000), where I spent seven days on a ventilator and in a hypothermic coma because docs feared brain damage. Three months later, I had a defibrillator implanted in my chest because they suspected a momentary loss of electrical signals to the heart. No damage to the heart, and I became one of less than 5 percent who survive a sudden cardiac arrest and come out of it not drooling.
Pretty bad day, huh? Nah. It got worse. Fast forward five years. Stopped in Front Range city for a minor traffic violation. While waiting for ticket to be written, two other squad cars come roaring up. It was a felony fugitive party! I was taken out of the car, handcuffed, arrested and taken to jail for a felony drug warrant out of Vail. Turns out an emergency room "Karen" had discovered a small bag of shrooms in my ski pants and called The Man. (I was meeting old University of Montana college buddies that ill-fated day for our annual slopeside homage to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.)
Vail never bothered to let me know I was wanted by Johnny Law. Upshot: Six years later, a nice young judge in Eagle took pity on me and dismissed the charge after I was a good geezer for nine months. I don't think federal sentencing guidelines anticipated what to do with a retired professional, responsible taxpayer and obvious knothead.
Oh, yea, I missed the rest of the 2012 season and have had to miss subsequent annual Kesey celebrations out of deference to my two loving daughters.
So, OK, judge me. I'm good with that. But did I win the post?

Whoa!
Cardiac arrrest and shroom arrest!

 

[crgildart]

Yea, it was, for me. But all my "friends" sure got a kick out of it. They call me the most hapless criminal in the West.

So what if you had made it up the mountain with your friends and partook in the party favors THEN the widowmaker arrived?? I can't imagine being in that stare of mind ahd having that happen to a friend or myself.

 

[Fuller]

Longtime lurker but infrequent poster. But I think I need to tell my story. For the children.
Sunny weekday morning mid-February in 2012. Parked my car at Donovan Park in West Vail, wrestled my way into my stupid Dobermann plugs, hoisted my skis and walked to the bus stop on Matterhorn Drive. There, I promptly fell over dead when my heart stopped beating. A young woman (my angel) waiting at the stop with her sons started chest compressions until an ambulance arrived nearly five minutes later. Apparently, EMTs got a heartbeat after a second shock. Stabilized at Vail Hospital, then choppered unconscious to a Denver Hospital ($31,000), where I spent seven days on a ventilator and in a hypothermic coma because docs feared brain damage. Three months later, I had a defibrillator implanted in my chest because they suspected a momentary loss of electrical signals to the heart. No damage to the heart, and I became one of less than 5 percent who survive a sudden cardiac arrest and come out of it not drooling.
Pretty bad day, huh? Nah. It got worse. Fast forward five years. Stopped in Front Range city for a minor traffic violation. While waiting for ticket to be written, two other squad cars come roaring up. It was a felony fugitive party! I was taken out of the car, handcuffed, arrested and taken to jail for a felony drug warrant out of Vail. Turns out an emergency room "Karen" had discovered a small bag of shrooms in my ski pants and called The Man. (I was meeting old University of Montana college buddies that ill-fated day for our annual slopeside homage to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.)
Vail never bothered to let me know I was wanted by Johnny Law. Upshot: Six years later, a nice young judge in Eagle took pity on me and dismissed the charge after I was a good geezer for nine months. I don't think federal sentencing guidelines anticipated what to do with a retired professional, responsible taxpayer and obvious knothead.
Oh, yea, I missed the rest of the 2012 season and have had to miss subsequent annual Kesey celebrations out of deference to my two loving daughters.
So, OK, judge me. I'm good with that. But did I win the post?

Yeah, it's a bad day when it takes five years to get worse!

 

[bigskymck]

Truly a bad day, you never actually made it to the lift. That may be the worst part. No the heart stopped is the worst. Hope you are doing better.

Thanks for the well wishes, Uncle A. Remarkably, I'm fine and still a diehard skier. The last of my five grandkids was born a month after my attack, and I've been able to see them all grow into smart, funny kids. I was very, very lucky. The young woman at the bus stop undoubtedly saved my life. And while it sounds cliched, even to me, I now practice gratitude every day. For much of my life, I just took life for granted.

 

[Fuller]

Thanks for the well wishes, Uncle A. Remarkably, I'm fine and still a diehard skier. The last of my five grandkids was born a month after my attack, and I've been able to see them all grow into smart, funny kids. I was very, very lucky. The young woman at the bus stop undoubtedly saved my life. And while it sounds cliched, even to me, I now practice gratitude every day. For much of my life, I just took life for granted.

I had a similar experience and outcome, the biggest change in my life is that I have more patience and gratitude when dealing with others. You may not notice it though

 

[karlo]

did I win the post?

IMO, I don’t think so. People die every day. Plus, you came back and can laugh about it. Whereas,

The worst thing was developed Bells Palsy from the trauma and still have slighly paralyzed right side of face. A really bad day.

My vote’s for Pete.

 

[David Chaus]

Geez, I only had a tib-fib spiral fracture on my first (and last) day of the season 2010-11, Mt Baker. Pales in comparison to a lot of these stories.

I skied into some trees, decided I’d had enough of straddling small trees and traversed out. Once out of the trees, there was a ditch that usually gets filled in with snow and leveled out, but my right ski speared in the snow bank and my left ski kept going. I was surprised I had fallen. Then I realized what happened, and had to practice my calm breathing. Patrol got me on the sled and to the bottom of the lift, then the sled was hitched to snowmobile to take me to the patrol building.

I missed out on a big snow year.

It’s hardly worth mentioning, other than during my boredom during recovery I spent some time researching future trips, which led me to Epicski, then Pugski. So that’s something.

 

[pipestem]

There really is no point responding with another story here. I mean, really, what are you going to say - hey that's bad but at least you didn't die or develop palsy, Nope, the bar has been raised too high. Might as well lock the thread. I mean i broke a collarbone, tore a rotator cuff, scaped 80% of the skin off my arm, but hey, so what pal, you didn't die. thanks.

 

[Doug Briggs]

This was my worst day on the mountain.

 

[Tricia]

This was my worst day on the mountain.

Glad you're here to tell about it.