Snowboarding Safety 101

snowboarding safety

Nothing can ruin a perfect holiday getaway more than a painful physical injury. Every year, thousands of snowboarding accidents occur on the slopes. Over 92% of these accidents involve crashes into stationary objects, while some involve collisions with other snowboarders.

It is interesting to note that more than 50% of these accidents happen during the first season of snowboarding, and 25% of these accidents involve beginners. If you are planning to try your hands (or rather your feet) on snowboarding for the very first time, or snowboard for the first time in many years, your chances of becoming a snowboard accident statistic are pretty high.

Beginners who have yet to get used to the snowboard stance tend to fall often. Many have also yet to learn how to ‘fall properly’ in the event of an accident, which often cause severe wrist injuries.

Wrist injuries are the most common of all the injuries sustained in snowboarding. Instinctively, when we loose balance, we automatically stretch out our hands to break the fall. Our wrists are not designed to absorb high impacts so such reflexes often result in torn muscle, ligaments, and wrist fractures.

When you fall backwards, tuck in your hands inwards to distribute the impact over other parts of your body. Point your elbows backwards to break the fall as your elbows can absorb much more impact compared to your wrists. As pointing your elbows backwards during a fall is a unnatural reflex, it will be advisable for you to ‘practice falling’ this way before you hit the slopes. It is also recommended that all beginners wear wrist-guards to minimize injuries during falls and crashes.

Ankle injuries are also common in this sport. In snowboarding, the feet are securely attached to the snowboard, placing severe pressure on the ankle and calves during jumps and sharp turnings. Expert snowboarders often sustain such injuries due the high impact stunts.

The easiest way to avoid ankle injuries is to wear hard shell snowboard boots. Hard shell boots, protects the joints by restricting excessive ankle movements. Despite being the best boots to prevent ankle injury, many still opt to wear soft boots as they are much more comfortable and are less restrictive. When you wear soft boots, your chances of sustaining ankle injuries are two times higher then if you were to wear hard shell boots.

Other types of snowboarding injuries include, head, knee, and impact injuries. Wearing protective gears like knee guards and helmets will help reduce the risk of such injuries.

Avalanches are also a serious threat to snowboarders. An avalanche can travel at speeds of more than 100 mph, which is enough to knock anyone out at impact. Even if you survive the impact unscathed, you may find yourself buried under tones of snow after the avalanche. For beginners, it is best to stay away from steep slopes and if you are unsure, always check with local guides about the weather (which is a major factor in causing avalanches), and high-risk slopes.

In the event of any accidents, a little knowledge in basic first aid goes a long way. The first thing to do is to make sure that your surrounding is safe. Make sure that the cause of the victim’s injury is no longer present to avoid further injury to the victim and also to prevent you from becoming a victim yourself.

The next step is to check the victim for response. If your victim is conscious, ask if he has sustained any other forms of injury. If unconscious, make sure that the victim’s airway is open and check if he is experiencing any difficulty breathing. If there is no breathing, proceed to perform CPR.

If the victim has been exposed to the cold for a prolonged period of time, check if he or she is suffering from hypothermia. If so, it is imperative that you keep the victim as warm as possible while you wait for rescue services to arrive. An effective way to do this is through the inhalation of warm, water-saturated air (the steam from warm water).

If the vital signs of the victims are stable, contact rescue services immediately (if you are not alone in attending to the victim, this is to be done immediately upon the occurrence of the accident).
Photo Credit: dziner

Originally posted 2008-10-28 04:55:50.

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