Another man down......

[bfreeski]

About one week ago now I went out the front going from 1 to 2 ball on my opening pass of the day. I had a bad gate, pulled too hard and wide at 1. ball and nearly stood up for a mulligan at the other end........but I didn't. Instead My manliness kicked in and I decided to make a run at finishing the pass. So with terrible form, broken forward at the waist I pulled hard for two ball....hit the wake and proceeded to cartwheel across the water. My rear foot came out at some point but not the front. when I touched down again I felt a terrible pain in my left (front) ankle. When I finally came to a stop my foot was still half in the front binding and I was relieved to reach down and feel that it was at least pointing the right direction. After climbing onto the swimstep and idling back to the dock I was thought I may have only sprained it. Several hours later it was badly swollen on both sides despite R.I.C.E. and was more painful than any sprain i had ever had. So I was off to Urgent Care, where in short order I found out that I had a fracture, a small chip had broken off the medial malleolus, likely when the calcaneus hit the tip of the tibia, after tearing all the ligaments on the lateral side (outside) of my ankle. The next day I followed up with my foot and ankle specialist, and at this point he does not think surgery is necessary. I am in a splint till next week for follow up x-rays and then likely a cast, or hopefully a walking boot.

 

The good news is that my fracture is relatively minor......but the bad news is there is a ton of soft tissue damage. What kind of timelines have other people with fractures and sprains had for getting back to onto the water? I am pretty sure the fracture will be long healed before the soft tissue damage has resolved

 

And since I know people will ask, I use the uber-moderator's favorite bindings (and I always wear the laces pretty loose)......but based on my epic lack of form and judgement I am not sure the bindings would have mattered at all.

 

B

 

[RLW]

I feel for you. Had a similar injury a few years ago. It's hard to predict timing for recovery, since that's an unusual fracture pattern. I agree with nonoperative treatment unless bone doesn't heal and causes pain. You're right that the soft tissue injury will take time - could be 2-3 months, but hard to say. My ankle stayed swollen for 9 months, but I skied in about 3 mo.

[Gloersen]

Unfortunate. Take it 1 week at a time, be patient for the first 8. Good luck & speedy recovery.

[OTF]

Ouch! Heal quickly and properly!

[Chuck_Dickey]

@bfreeski

 

Mine was very similar damage but in a hyper compression into the boot when I stalled the ski going around 4 ball. My knee was nearly touching the tip of the ski and I heard and felt a POP. Thought sure it was my Achilles but turned out is was a buckle that popped on my boot. Hurt like crazy. Labor Day weekend 8/31/2013

 

Small fracture to the tibia and torn muscles on each side of the Achilles. Bruised cartilage all around the ankle/tibia area. They told me 4 to 6 weeks to heal and then rehab for who knows how long.

[Chuck_Dickey]

@bfreeski

The other side looks about the same.

[HPskier1]

Did a little more damage than that 2 both ankles. take it easy then go to physical therapy a lot. took me about August until March then skied in April. Good luck

[Rico226]

Great to hear no surgery necessary, know it is the last thing you want, but ensuring the ankle heals completely before coming back, lot of folks rush back too quickly only to reinjure. I did something similar last May, bad gate, late one, got into an andy mapple lean, changed edges & ran into 2 ball, fratured talus, dislocating peroneal tendon, torn retinaculum, season was over, had to have surgery, looking forward to the new season next year, but I feel for ya, things can change in a nano sec out there in a sport we freakin luv ! No longer an ankle model :) but time heals everything, hang in there !

[Dirt]

Same here. Tib and fib front ankle. I should have stood up rather than hit the buoy. Two Weeks ago today and still swells up every day.

[gator1]

@bfreeski, @dirt, @rico In theory, and in experience (mine anyway, and the rest of the early adopters), gatormod would have saved you.

 

bfreeski's fall is a very key piece of data to consider if you are trying to think about this stuff. His laces were loose, but his front ankle was still forced to overflex. Why? With loose laces in that boot he can easily pull his foot out of the boot while standing on the dock. He should have been safe.

 

The answer is that falls are dynamic. Even if he was standing on the ski barefoot his body does not have the strength to pry his heel off the ski while being smashed down over his front foot with all his weight PLUS the g-force added to his weight by dint of his decelerating body.

 

Try it. Put a 200lb barbell on your shoulders, stand on one foot, squat down to a crouch and TRY to lift your heel. That is only one G. Now think what would happen if somebody gently pushed you from behind while you were in that pose with 400 lbs on your shoulders.

 

How many G's do you think you pull when you stuff the tip or ram it into the wake or into a buoy?

 

The loose laces or loose buckles or mechanical front foot heel release or dualok all serve to require a much more perfect unholy union of circumstances in order to hurt you. But, as bfreeski has now had the unfortunate honor to prove, the set of unholy circumstances can happen.

 

I find the continual self blame after an injurious crash to be really disheartening: "maybe my laces were too tight"....."I should have let go"...."why didn't I just ski inside that buoy"..."the water was cold and my bindings were stiff"....."I didn't stretch before I skied".

 

Reminds me of an abused wife I knew who said "it was my fault he hit me, the coffee I served him WAS cold"

 

This is supposed to be fun, and trying to get better makes it fun. But its awful damn hard to get better without falling. And even harder to get better when you are WORRIED about falling.

 

And, guys get hurt shooting hoops or walking up stairs, so if you have a flawed tendon (or took CIPRO anti-biotic: side effects include blown achilles tendons up to 6 GD months after taking this shit. Are you effing KIDDING ME???!!!!) gatormod won't fix that.

 

But it sure looks like these ski injuries that include multiple bad things to many tendons, ligaments and busted bones are not anywhere near the same as the pop Kobe heard and then kept playing.

 

So gatormod looks ungainly, inelegant, or seems unproven. I agree. But until you guys demand of the manufacturers a cogent description of how their binding will save you in a crushing otf or crushing twister, and then demand they supply a binding that will at least THEORETICALLY save you (much less with data to back up their theory), its gatormod or a crapshoot.

 

 

[eleeski]

@gatormod I don't get how if your heel is G pressed onto the ski how anything will allow a release. Maybe a sensor surgically implanted into the ankle would trigger explosive bolts on the binding.

 

The real problem is that we are skiing at high levels as we age. Bones are weaker, tendons less elastic and any injury takes longer to heal.

 

No mods to make us younger. Yet.

 

Eric

[bfreeski]

I have spent a lot of time thinking about injuries, bindings, etc this last week. The forces involved in the various ways we fall are complex and usually involve motion in multiple axes. What does seem to make more and more sense to me is that my particular injury would be mush less likely if my feet both remained connected either to my ski (i.e. my rear binding was actually on tighter thus possibly preventing the single-leg scenario), or if I was using a plate that either released or stayed in place on the ski. That does not mean I would not have somehow injured something else in the same crash. I would be curious to hear about any ankle fractures that occurred while using a single plate type system.

 

As my fall was not really an OTF moment, I am not sure if the gator mod would have been activated or not.

 

[gator1]

@eleeski Well, if you, the inventor of the frangible polymeric link binding, don't get it I'm certainly not doing a good job of explaining. Here comes another shot at it: Your heel is Gpressed to ski. Which is ok until your knee starts to travel ahead of your ankle, and your ankle is beginning to overflex. Then, the cords attached to your knee go tight. The cords are attached to the rear of the plate via the levers of gatormod. If your knee is driven farther forward, the cords pull the rear of the plate off the ski, so that your ankle never flexes more then your have set the cord length to allow.

 

In essence, the cords attached to your knee and to the levers act as your explosive bolts, prying the binding plate off the ski at exactly the angle you have selected as the farthest you want your front ankle to ever be flexed.

 

The length of the cords act as your surgically implanted sensor. They never get tight unless your ankle is flexed to its max.

 

No kidding here, if I'm not explaining this well enough tell me and I'll make a video and post it. It may be like the scary multi switchback road up to my house-I'm so used to it I can't understand why people worry about driving up it.

 

And I agree, we don't see many of the young guys posting in the "man down" posts. But that just means we have to do a better job with technology to compensate. I never bought a vette till I went bald.

[matthewbrown]

smashed my talus/calcaneous together nicely causing fractures, and bad sprain of deltoid ligament and a few smaller ligaments--- chose not to do surgery as both orthos agreed that soft tissue would heal ok and the fractures would migrate back to where they came from....non-weight bearing for 3 months, skiing in 4 months and back to 100% in about 2 years

 

[Craig]

@bfreeski I have had this exact injury but slightly less severe (hairline fracture with no separation). I was in a walking boot for about 8 weeks, a brace for 4 weeks, and skied with a taped ankle for about 8 weeks (injured in May back on the water in August), if I recall correctly. I feel your pain, and hope the recovery goes well. Don't skimp on the rehab, that is critically important!

[Patrick]

@bfreeski I also had basically the exact same injury. The chip on my medial malleolus was completely separated but not displaced, so didn't require surgery. I was on crutches for maybe 6 weeks, walking boot for roughly the same after that, then rehab. I injured it in mid-June. By maybe late Sep or early Oct I was playing volleyball in a brace but not near full speed. I did a few weeks just on the ground before I started adding in jumping. Strength and confidence built up slowly from then on.

 

Today it's recovered in the sense that it doesn't limit me in any way, but still feels swollen from time to time, aches, etc. No real 'pain' but definitely feels different than the other foot.

[MattP]

@gator1 I understand the product. But I think a video would help a lot of people out.

[estrom]

@gator1, how does the system work with double rubber boots screwed into the inserts on the ski? What releases when the gatormod is activated?

[gator1]

@estrom it wouldn't work on that setup. If you want to use double rubber boots (which many people do because of the compliant feel) we'd mount them on a G10 type plate, with the mod built into the plate. The G10 would be attached to the ski with the appropriate amount of dualok. The mod would force the dualok to release in the crushing otf or crushing twister. The mod pries the plate off the ski whenever your front knee gets too far ahead of your front ankle.

[gator1]

@mattp yep. Gatormod video in production. Won't be up to the high standards set by the BOS staff's unboxing vids in terms of production quality, dramatic tension, storyline complexity, or star power of the cast. For instance, our leading man is an old bald guy (not Bruce Willis, just so the rumors don't start flying) . But we'll do the best we can. If we could find a three legged cat, we could plan on submitting it to the Sundance festival.

[skidawg]

Hate to hear all the carnage out there. On a positive note---My left ankle is rock solid and I am at 3 mths post op on Achilles rupture and released from the doctor. Gonna try and get a few sets in late October!

[chris_logan]

@gator1 and @estrom, I would not suggest a gatormod setup on dual rubber boots. I have seen dual Wileys mounted on a releasable plate before - then they both released in a nasty out the front and the Wiley's went to the bottom of the lake. The key with Rubber boots it to make sure they fit (as in not a size too small or cranked down to tight in the case of most O'brien and Connelly rubber boots).

[bfreeski]

@gator1 I see how the mod would work in the event of an OTF, but I am not sure how it would work in a twisting type of fall where your front knee did not go far enough forward.

[chris_logan]

@bfreeski there is a system that is in the final stages of design and will soon be coming to market that will release in all directions. I can't go too much into detail about it, since it's not mine, but if the designer (who is a Baller) happens to see this, then that person may elaborate on it potentially in it's own thread. I don't believe it has been run through the patent office yet, so it may be a while before any of it can come to light.

[gator1]

Attaway @bfreeski, keeping digging into this and call BS wherever it doesn't make sense. Good for you.

 

The gatormod would have saved you, because it is ONLY used with setups which keep both feet in. A twisting type fall theoretically can't hurt you if both feet stay in the boots. And I've looked pretty hard to find anybody that disproved that theory. Can't find them (that's the poll you want to run: did anybody suffer a TWISTING injury-knee or ankle or leg bones- while both feet stayed in?)

 

The twister is one of the two main problems with the loose laces/rubber boot approach: They have to be loose enough that you come out of them easily in a mostly failed attempt to mitigate the crushing OTFs. But then they are so loose one foot can come out, one foot stays in and in a twister you get these horrible torsional fractures, or, in a lightly crushing OTF, you roll forward on a pretty straight front leg and overflex your front ankle while the back leg waves around in the air. Or some combination of twist and crush. Like you did.

 

The problem with the both feet in approach is it saves you from the twisters, but puts you at risk from the crushing OTFs.

 

Gatormod takes the good part of both feet in, and combines it with a forced release for an OTF. And the g10 with dualok or fogman type plate adds a level of redundancy in the twister because it may release on its own without gatormod forcing it.

 

@chris_logan, in a rubber boot/gatormod plate setup, the rubber boots have an "ankle bracelet" safety feature. After you slide into the boot, you snap a strap around your ankle. In normal skiing the strap is not noticeable, and doesn't affect the compliant feel of rubber. But, in a crash, the strap keeps both feet in the boots and on the plate, and the gatormod plate releases from the ski as if the rubber boots were hardshells. BTW, the cords running from your front knee to the rear of the plate would keep your plate attached to you in the event you somehow forgot to buckle in, the plate released, and you came out of both boots.

 

Good luck on telling the ballers you have a patent coming so you can't explain your invention. I did that and it really pissed them off.

[gator1]

@skidawg! Congrats! That's really fast. You young guys heal quick.

[chris_logan]

@gator1 I understand what you mean know with the plate being tethered and the ankle straps, and that makes perfect sense to work in the case I mentioned. Thanks for the additional info.

 

The system I made reference to is in no way mine nor did I have anything to do with it. I just happened to see it a short time ago and asked the user what it was. I'm not trying to promote anything over your product at all, and I think your product is quite ingenious. If any baller can come up with something to make this sport better and safer, I'm all for it. More power to you for taking the initiative to develop the gatormod.

[skidawg]

@gator1....not full speed for 3 more months, just no more dr. visits and released to move again. I will be contacting you about a gator mod this winter.

[gator1]

@chris_logan: No worries. If I sounded pissy didn't mean to. Soon as somebody comes up with something better than mine, mine goes in the trash and I'm skiing on whatever is safer. I'm not trying to make money off of it. Just sick of the "carnage" as skidawg calls it.

[gator1]

@skidawg. Oh, bummer. I thought you were superman. Talk to you during off season. Ha! A dawg on a gator.