How skiers get hurt, and the habits that prevent it

Skiing has a reputation for danger that the numbers do not really support. Serious injuries are relatively uncommon and millions of people ski every winter without incident. What is true is that the injuries which do happen follow a pattern, and most of that pattern is avoidable.

They happen at the end of the day

This is the single most consistent observation, and it is worth planning around. By four in the afternoon you are tired, the light is flattening, the snow has been pushed into piles by everybody else and the slopes back to the village are crowded with people in the same state as you.

The last run is where a large share of injuries occur. Stopping one run earlier than you want to costs you almost nothing. Taking a lift down instead of skiing a poor, crowded home run is not an admission of defeat, it is a sensible decision that experienced skiers make regularly.

The same logic applies to alcohol. A drink at lunch affects balance and judgement for the afternoon, and the afternoon is already the risky part.

The chairlift and the knee

If you are a beginner, one habit is worth learning before anything else. Do not get off a chairlift in a snowplough. If somebody behind or beside you steps on the tail of your ski while your knee is turned inwards and loaded, that is exactly the mechanism that produces an anterior cruciate ligament injury. Ski off the lift with your skis parallel, and if you need to slow down, do it once you have space.

Most ACL injuries in skiing happen at low speed in awkward positions rather than in fast falls, which is why beginners and intermediates are not exempt from them.

Speed, ego and the recorded run

Modern skiing has a new hazard, which is data. Chasing a faster reading on an app, or skiing for a camera, encourages people to ski beyond their technical ability on terrain they would otherwise take sensibly.

If you find yourself going faster than you intended, the instinct is to point the skis down the hill to get it over with. Do the opposite. Complete the turn you are in and let it run across the mountain. A long, finished turn sheds speed. A cut-short turn adds it.

Other people

A good share of what we treat is the result of a collision rather than a fall. You cannot control other skiers, but you can leave room, look uphill before you set off, and treat the edges of pistes as places where somebody may drop in without checking. That last point is worth making to children specifically.

Know your limits, honestly

Challenging yourself is part of the sport. Skiing a mogul field you cannot ski is not challenging yourself, it is hoping. There is no shame in taking the blue run and enjoying it.

If you are injured in resort

Get seen there rather than waiting until you are home. Resort medical teams deal with musculoskeletal injuries constantly and are very good at them, and early advice makes a real difference to how the next few weeks go. Take any imaging or paperwork home with you.

Once back, see your GP or a physiotherapist rather than assuming a swollen knee will settle. Ligament and cartilage injuries treated early do better, and rehabilitation after an ACL reconstruction in particular is what decides the eventual result far more than the surgery does.

For stiff, tired legs mid holiday rather than an injury, a massage in resort is genuinely useful and will make the next day better.

Before you go

None of this replaces arriving fit enough for the week, which is where the risk really moves. Our guide to getting ski fit covers what to do in the eight weeks beforehand.

Sports injury assessment and treatment and sports massage are both available at our Haslemere clinic, and Gill Onslow, who has skied many seasons in Val d'Isere, sees skiers before they travel as well as after.