
Injuries are a common topic in mountain communities. We tend to push ourselves to the point of having them. If you have an on-mountain or sports-related injury, we want you to share the story of your injury, recovery, and redemption (and if you’re currently injured, we want to hear your plans for the last two).
New stories will print in the Vail Daily on Fridays
Submit Your Fracture Friday Story
Fracture Friday: ACLs aren’t just for adults
Last January, my season came to an abrupt end as I tore my ACL and disrupted my knee while skiing. Most people don’t know that there’s nowhere for pediatric surgery in the mountains. I had...
Fracture Friday: Recovering in mind and body
Heading into the senior season of my Division I collegiate lacrosse career, I considered myself one of the luckiest athletes I knew. I had managed to play four years of a varsity sport without having…
Fracture Friday: My Maine chapter
This tale pales in comparison to the gruesome injuries, arduous rehabs and heroic redemptions that have preceded it in other Fracture Friday stories, but my only on-snow injury — no matter how humble — is…
Fracture Friday: Blake Hanks the bootfitter refuses to cut boot
On February 7, 2021, I was skiing in the trees in one of my favorite places headed across and going to another section. I came around a tree, wiped my goggles off – there was…
Fracture Friday: David DiCicco’s unscheduled flight to Denver
“What is your name? Who is the President? Where are you?“
Fracture Friday: Olympian Nina O’Brien recovering in Edwards, planning for redemption
O’Brien is undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy in a high-altitude facility for fractures in her leg.
Fracture Friday: Meghan Buchanan goes from broken femur to Mt. Everest
On Super Bowl Sunday 2011, I was snowboarding at high speeds, through a shoot on Windows, when I hit a fallen tree buried under four feet of new snow. I was thrown back off my…
Fracture Friday: Wayne Hobin’s duct tape splint job
There ... a little gauze and some duct tape and I can get my fractured wrist into the glove. Now I'm good for several more days of skiing.
Fracture Friday: Tom and Kristi’s matching shoulder slings
In 2011, 10 Concordia College track and field athletes utilized their Christmas break to depart the desolate plains of northwest Minnesota to the bright bowls of Big Sky, Montana. The resort had hosted my family’s…
Fracture Friday: Pro skier Chris Anthony’s injury, recovery and redemption
I had escaped most of my career free of knee injury.
Fracture Friday: The injury, the recovery and the redemption
The metal rod in my left thigh will stand the test of time better than anything else in my body. It simply won’t let me forget December 4, 2016.