First ski attempt in 30 years cut short by Schoolmarm

The painkillers kick in and the narcotic fog merges the spring break fantasy in my head with the reality of the hospital report in my hand. I imagine that I need to be airlifted off the black-diamond ski run named “Snake Pit” after I catch too much air on a turn and wrap my left knee around an outstretched branch of a pine tree at the top of the Keystone ski resort in Colorado.

The truth is far less exciting. I am skiing the easiest terrain of the entire mountain — a gently sloping, open ski run called Schoolmarm — when I lose control, fall, roll and feel a pain in my left knee.

”You'd be surprised how many skiers hurt themselves on Schoolmarm,” says one of my emergency-room caretakers, kindly assuring me that skiers sometimes fall prey to the green run with the wimpiest name this side of the Bunny Hill.

Heading into my first ski lesson at Breckenridge the day before, I fear I'll be the only adult in the class. I worry that my instructor will be dressed like a clown. I suspect my fellow ski rookies will keep asking me if I live in the same complex as their grandpa. Turns out, although I am the oldest person in my lesson, we are all adults. The lesson ends with me feeling better about my ability and even a tiny bit cocky. I ski almost as well as the much younger woman from Elgin and better than her friend who originally hails from Mexico. I hold my own against the three firefighters from east Texas. I don't veer off course nearly as much as the former professional golfer, who has to be reminded repeatedly to “keep your head up.” The only time I fall during my daylong lesson is getting off the ski lift.

This ski adventure starts much better than the only other time I have been on skis, back when I was in my 20s. That 1980s episode ended prematurely when I, cold and wet in my jeans and leather gloves, flew down the hill in a tuck position with no clue how to stop and was hit from behind by a 9-year-old boy. I remember landing on top of the kid and riding him down the hill as if he were a sled, even successfully completing a couple of nice turns before I trudged back up the slope, grabbed my skis, walked to the car and took a three-decade vacation from skiing.

But when my wife's sister and her family generously offer us their ski condo in Colorado for last week's spring break, we jump at the chance. My wife skis, and our three boys love to ski. I decide to join the fun.

The emergency room doctor later says the immediate and severe swelling caused by the “interderangement” in my knee generally is an indication that I, like the Florida woman in the bed next to mine, tore an anterior cruciate ligament. But I had my ACL removed 30 years ago after I blew it out playing basketball.

“You have no ACL in your left knee, and you have an artificial right hip, and you are skiing?” the doctor says as he raises an eyebrow and adds a question mark to his observation.

I know I am headed to the ER the minute I crash. But I get back on my skis immediately after my injury as if I am Jay Cutler, and try to ski down the second half of the mountain. But, having lost all ability to steer or stop, I end up standing stoically on the sidelines as if I am Jay Cutler, unable to finish what I started.

The nonjudgmental Keystone Ski Patrol is happy to see me, even thrilled, as my injury occurs minutes before a noon deadline that marks the end of a competition among all the rescue personnel to see which one gets credit for the most rescues.

”I don't mean to celebrate your injury,” says Erica, a beaming, but apologetic, patrol member as she acknowledges that my knee vaults her into a first-place tie with a guy from Australia for the coveted “Rig Pig” award. The crew straps me into a rig and pulls me behind a snowmobile to the hospital. Our small talk about ski injuries leads to the discussion of the last ski fatality — a man killed when he hit a tree.

“Was he wearing a helmet?” I ask.

“I don't remember,” a patrol member says. “He hit a tree.”

Grateful I am not a good enough skier to reach the trees, I enjoy my time in the ER. The woman who fits me for a brace grew up in Highland Park and thinks she went to high school with the son of my former landlord when I rented a coach house across from a golf course, which is another sport in which I have no control and am wary of trees.

I've got to head out now to see my orthopedic surgeon. But I really should keep a copy of this column in my wallet. It might serve as good preventive medicine if I get the urge to ski again in another 30 years.