Wanna bet ? Tell that to the Polish nine-year-old mown down and left bleeding on an Austrian ski slope the other week. Or the five-year-old sent flying in another Austrian resort during his ski school lesson and taken off the hill with a suspected broken jaw.
Accidents happen, you may say, and indeed they do – I was wiped out myself only yesterday by some chap who misjudged his line and clipped the backs of my skis. Technically his fault, but no more than an error of judgement and no harm done.
But the key difference between my little mishap and the other two incidents was that the chap in question stopped to see that I was all right, gave me back my poles and apologised before taking off again. Those two kids were taken out by adult skiers who just carried on hooning down the slope as though nothing had happened. In each case the child was injured enough to need hospital treatment. In each case they could have been much more seriously hurt, in need of immediate first aid, even dead. And the people in question just skied off and left them lying there.
These are children we’re talking about here. Children. You know? Small vulnerable critters. Supposed to be able to look to adults for shelter and protection. And said adults have just used them as ninepins and hooned off laughing. If I hadn’t had it from several different sources – if I hadn’t experienced it myself on various occasions – I would have writte it off as urban myth.
You wouldn’t knock someone over in the street and run off without helping them up, would you? And you certainly wouldn’t mow them down in your car and leg it down the road without stopping to face the music either. So why do people think it’s OK to do it on skis?
These aren’t isolated incidents either. It’s happened to me on at least two occasions. Someone did it to my other half two days ago, I’ve seen it happen to others, and I have numerous friends who have reported similar incidents. I have no idea what (if anything) is going on in these people’s heads.
All over the ski websites, debate rages on about dangerous skiing and boorish behaviour on the slopes. There’s a general conviction that it’s on the increase (not sure there’s evidence for that myself, but never mind) and it has been blamed variously on new style skis, helmet-wearing, over-groomed slopes, snowbladers, you name it.
But the key question, and the one which has me totally baffled, is how could you – how could you? – ski off and leave a child bleeding in the snow? How could anyone do that? Sorry, I’m repeating myself.
I’ve got no answers for you. It’s so far off the planet I live on that I can’t even speculate. Anyone got any suggestions to offer? Because I’d really like to know.
On the occasions it’s happened to me, I’ve ended up a bit bruised and slightly dazed for a minute or two. (Not that the perpetrators would know that, but presumably they don’t care.) If anyone out there is planning to try it again, be warned – I ski with a fit martial arts trained man who can board faster than you ski in your wildest dreams and is under strict instructions next time it happens to leave me in the snow, chase you down and spread your nose across your face. He’ll probably do the same for any hit and run victim. You have been warned.
