8 years ago today I almost died.
It was 2005 and I was a junior in high school, skiing on my favorite mountain with my first love and his sisters, one of my best friends, and a pack of other kids. The day was blue and gold and perfect. We skiied hard from dawn to dusk, leaving tracks and imprints of our laughter all over the mountain, racing each other through the trees, barely pausing to wolf down lunches before bolting back out to soak up the day and the sunlight and our excitement for each other.
At the end of the day, we returned to the main lift to head back up the mountain for one more run before we went to dinner. Sadly, the lift attendant was closing down the chairs for the day, and seemed perfectly capable of ignoring our pleas for just one more run. As we turned to ski away, the attendant changed his mind, calling out to us ”alright guys, you can take the last run.”
I had been waiting weeks for Peter (the boy, a senior) to ask me to prom. We had a wonderful, happy, flirtatious relationship and he was crazy about me, and I have realized only now how much I loved, and love, him. We took that last lift ride up the mountain, my helmeted head resting on his shoulder as the sun set behind the mountain, casting long shadows over the trails and the tips of our skis. I was perfectly content, my body comfortably tired, pressed up close to the first boy to give me butterflies. We met the rest of our group at the top of an easy trail down; we had all agreed earlier in the day to be the last ones off the mountain and so we waited, measuring the distance of other skiier’s voices like a child would measure seconds between thunderclaps and lightning.
When we were sure it was only us left to take the final run of the day, we took off.
Moments later, I was lying on the ground at the foot of a birch tree, blood filling up my helmet, my legs convulsing in the snow. Peter said he had nightmares for weeks.
I don’t remember the crash, but I do remember opening my eyes and staring at the sky, which had turned gray and cloudy as the sun set. Tiny, invisible snow flakes were pouring out of giant cracks in the sky, cracks which were also the naked limbs of the tree I had just slammed into. Things shifted or I blinked and then there were red jackets around me and loud voices and people swearing. Her my body was moved, a helmet was taken off and an ocean of blood poured out of it onto the snow. Things were red. People were red, redcoats. I closed my eyes but a man swore near my ear and told me to stay with him. Keep your eyes open! Onto a sled, and we moved and my body floated but my head was joustled and oh my god there is something terribly wrong. There is something wrong. Something is wrong.
Things shifted or I blinked and we’re inside and I start shivering and it is convulsions and they are cutting all my clothes off, jewelry removed and I am so cold but I can’t tell them.
Things shifted or I blinked and I’m outside again and I hear a great noise, the air is chopped finely like onions diced and the blades slice and oh it’s a helicopter. Now we are in the sky and things really start to hurt and I see clouds again and the redcoats are coming.
Rooftop, down a ramp, hospital trauma room.
Blink. The faces of my parents and sister float lazily into view without their bodies, must’ve left them in the waiting room.
Blink. A nurse has me sit up to get ready for more xray’s or ct’s and I see a corner of my face in a mirror and I have been turned inside out. My jaw hangs slackly and I am swollen but my right cheek is open and I can see everything. I begin to fall but they catch me and when I wake up I am in a hospital bed and I can’t move and my sister is washing crusted blood out of my hair. The basin is red.
Post-op: The tree broke my jaw and skull in multiple places, my jaw was wired shut for six weeks and I was on a liquid diet for that time. A titanium plate was installed in my jaw to keep the pieces together. The gash in my right cheek was stiched painstakingly back together over the course of a long surgery, but I have a permanent scar, three inches long on my face. My second smile. I had a severe concussion, whiplash and lots of other bruises but I left the hospital after three days time to rest at home for two weeks before returning to school, and to Peter. He asked me to prom the day I got back.
My weight dropped from a healthy 118 pounds to 98 in the course of six weeks and an all-liquid diet. I had several more procedures to remove the titanium plate and the jaw hardware and had to have braces put on, again, for the shift in my teeth which ocurred while my jaw was wired shut.
My face is permanently changed from the accident. Not that I look deformed (aside from the scar… I’ll post a picture of it later) but I know the difference. I have persistent jaw and neck pain, I have chronic tension headaches, my mouth doesn’t open wide enough to eat a large sandwich, and I hear ominous clicks and pops in my jaw when I yawn. The concussion was the first and worst in a long line of traumatic brain injuries to come after. I deal with those effects daily. But I’m okay and I made it.
Five years later, to the day, I had my 9th and final concussion in another ski accident. This was not nearly as serious, but I broke my left orbital (eye socket) and had to take another ride in a helicopter. I haven’t skiied since; it’s not worth it.
8 years ago today I almost died. My face and psyche might be scarred but I am still standing and I am still worth my life.