Ski accidents: Hospitals report many serious attacks
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The number of ski accidents is back to pre-pandemic levels. Because of the current poor snow conditions, whenever many winter sports enthusiasts are treated with unusual attacks, according to Salzburg’s hospitals. The Schwarzach accident surgeon (Pongau) also takes the cable car operators to task.
On Sunday afternoon, the Klinikum Schwarzach (Pongau) recorded the 75th emergency helicopter landing on the roof of the hospital in just a few days of 2023. Up to 140 newly injured people were admitted here every day during the Christmas holidays – around 80 percent of them were skiers or snowboarders: ” I wasn’t on the snowboard for long, after an hour or two I fell backwards and supported myself wrongly with my hand and broke my arm,” said a vacationer from Lower Austria. His skiing fun ends just one day after his arrival.
“A striking number of thigh and hip injuries”
The Lower Austrian got off lightly with his broken arm. The proportion of particularly injuries after serious skiing accidents is high for the doctors this year: “It is particularly striking that we had injuries in the thigh and hip area, that was the absolute focus today. In addition, there are very serious chest injuries and severe tibial plateau injuries,” said Manfred Mittermair, chief of trauma surgery at the Schwarzach Clinic. According to the accident surgeon, the accumulation is very unusual, he assumes that the severe injury patterns are related to the current slope conditions.
Small slopes and big crowds
Due to the warm weather, there are narrow artificial snow slopes in the ski areas with no run-out area at the edge, but the number of skiers during the holidays was back to the level it was before the pandemic. This combination is responsible for many of the serious attacks, which is also monitored in the Tauern Clinic with its locations in Zell am See and Mittersill (both Pinzgau).
Tauernklinikum observes many collisions on slopes
During the Christmas holidays, 150 newly injured people were treated every day at both locations – here, too, the majority were skiers. “You notice that there are significantly more collisions in winters like this, because the mass of ski tourists moves in much less ski space,” says Jörg Grießmayer, senior physician in traumatology at Tauernklinikum Zell am See.
Trauma surgeon also makes ropeway operators responsible
Not only adults, but also numerous children had to be treated after skiing accidents in the hospital in Pinzgau during the Christmas holidays. In view of the many incidents on the slopes, one question above all arises for accident physicians: “If there are so many seriously injured and dead people on the ski slopes, why isn’t more done in the direction of prevention. If I go just a little too fast on the road, I get a decent road. People know the FIS rules (piste rules), but they don’t know how to deal with them, and above all they aren’t checked,” criticized Primar Manfred Mittermair from the Schwarzach Clinic. The next opportunity would be with the next big rush of holidaymakers from the beginning of February.