“Come back in one piece”, we want our friends and family members to say goodbye to skiing. Because everyone knows that skiing is fraught with dangers. Although the risk of accidents is decreased to the pistes in the last few years – thanks to modern safety bindings, protectors, and helmets. But at the same time trauma surgeons reports of serious injuries, there was not in this Form earlier. Debt to high speeds and artificial snow.
The German ski Federation (DSV) estimates that 4.2 million Germans regularly descend to the Ski. High expected around 42,000 winter sports athletes injured in the season 2015/2016 so that they needed medical treatment. The number of those who ended up in the hospital rose, compared to the prior year season to around 600 to 7300. Especially the head, neck, and chest are affected more often than in the past.
Andreas Imhoff from the Munich University hospital rechts der Isar observed for years, with what injury to skiers every Winter to come to the clinic. In the first half of the Christmas holidays, he and his colleagues had to operate particularly a lot of serious broken bones, torn ligaments, and dislocated joints. Not because of fresh powder snow attracted, but just because it was not until the turn of the year snowed. “Artificial snow is a Problem,” says the chief physician of the Department for sports Orthopaedics.
Most of the injuries affecting the knee, shoulder, and head.
The slopes would be flat-rolled than in the past, with no hills and humps, the ever-tightening snow lasts longer. The Piste machines, snow was rather hard and fast, almost at the downhill skiing of the professionals. Only experts are by no means on the road.
“The injured are more likely to be poorer skiers and beginners, the fall easily,” says Imhoff. “Speed is a major factor in road Accidents.” Many were completely untrained on the slopes. “It doesn’t surprise me that people are preparing.”
Narrow snow bands between brown Hanging
Add to that a warm Winter, skiers force is always at your back more often on narrow snow bands between brown mountain. These mountains own hazards – for example, for collisions due to the limited space.
It becomes especially dangerous when winter sports enthusiasts lose on the narrow roads and the control of Skis or Snowboard. “The skiers shoot over the slope and land in the terrain,” says Thomas Bucher, the German Alpine club (DAV). There ceiling stumps collisions with trees and rocks threatening without soft Snow.
The injuries would sometimes like after a motorcycle accident, reported by Ulrich Steiner, who works as a flight rescue medic in the Austrian ski resorts. There was a skull-brain trauma, vertebral fractures, and internal injuries. “If you look at the last Winter, which was a lot on artificial snow on the road, you will see that the accidents are often very difficult.”
Carven on the own conditions
In the past year, about Steiner’s Team caught up with the helicopter, a 50-year-old Skier, who was brought down on the edge of a ten metre wide snow slope on a slope. Diagnosis: concussion, vertebral body fracture, multiple rib fractures, lung collapse, and pulmonary contusion. With similar injuries, Steiner brought a Snowboarder to the hospital, was killed in an accident on artificial snow on a tree stump. “These are not the usual Accidents like before.”
Also Steiner sees in the high Tempo on the full slopes, the moments of Danger. “With the waisted skis a bad skier is much faster with a false sense of security on the road. You see, many times, that someone is driving with a bad Can about his conditions.”
Injuries, often without external influence
In principle, at least, the number of injured in Relation to the number of skiers has decreased significantly. “Today we have 50 percent fewer injuries than in 1980,” says Andrew king, a security expert at the German ski Federation (DSV). This was the result of the evaluation point for skiing Accidents the ARAG sports insurance, which covers for more than 30 years, violations of the German skiers.
The risk of accidents has tended to decline for years – from all-clear may, however, be no question.
An Austria-wide analysis of 7000 of Ski and snowboard accidents, even goes one step further, and, Therefore, has halved the number of Accidents on the ski slopes of Austria within ten years. While it came out in 2002/2003 to an average of 1.3 injuries per 1000 ski days, were among the researchers in 2012/2013, an average of 0.6 injuries per 1000 days, which were people on skis.
The experts at the University of Innsbruck and the Austrian ski Association to declare the result of fewer Falls, the improved ski with shorter skis, but also regular checks of the bonds, and better-groomed slopes.
The analysis confirms, however, that most of the injuries occurred at a high Tempo. Among the other risk factors, steep slopes, soft snow and poor visibility – all factors that make skiing more strenuous.
Skiers should prepare for the winter holidays, rates the authors of the study. It was important, in the run-up to the leg muscles to strengthen. The Good: A lot of their health and winter sports enthusiasts have in Hand, the results of the study from Austria. More than 80 percent of the injured rushed without external influences. Only seven (men) or eight (women) percent, there was a collision with another Person.