I’d already decided this would be my last week of snowboarding before the accident. I probably didn’t enjoy it as much as I had in the past because of the lack of snow cover and the flat light that removed all definition from the snow and blended it perfectly with the mist. There was also the fact that in Queenstown the lodges were at least half an hour drive away so you couldn’t just go back to your room for a break.
The mist rose on the afternoon of my fourth day on the slopes (a new place today) and I found myself at the top of a black run with good fresh snow, but just one hill before the lift. I made the most of it, swooshing down it and off piste a bit to where it was less compacted. I was almost at the bottom when a rock appeared. I tried to dodge it, which was a mistake. There was another rock below it, so rather than just scratching my board, I landed on my back on the top rock, then bounced down the ones below. Crunch. Breath… gone… pain… instead.
The effort of forcing my breath out through the pain brought an accompanying agonised moan. And again. It was a good half minute before I could draw air in. By the time Dave joined me, I was breathing, but couldn’t talk. He followed me down the hill and up the lift, by which time I’d caught my breath. Another run and a hot drink later, I decided that I should go to medical centre and at least try to get a heat pack. Secretly, I wanted confirmation that I’d broken a rib. ‘I broke a rib and skied back to base’ doesn’t sound half so good with a ‘think’ at the front of the sentence.
The pretty, Canadian doctor looked at me without expression and spoke compassionately. ‘We’ve found blood in your urine so we’re going to send you back to Queenstown by ambulance to have your kidneys scanned, just to be sure.’
My first thought, after the humiliation, was of money. The chart on the wall said $25 for an accident checkup or $85 for a standard consultation. Fair enough, my ski pass was paying for some of that. An ambulance was a different matter.
‘It won’t cost you anything. Australians are our friends.’ Apparently they’d tried charging Aussies for medical care, but the administrative costs of chasing payments up wasn’t worth it.
Health Care has been a major issue in Obama’s campaign, but I’m not for it. Without any empirical evidence, I feel that making it too easy for people to get health care stops them taking responsibility for themselves. I actively do things that make me healthy and (generally) avoid doing things that will injure me or make me unhealthy. I also save most of my money so that I have enough to cover me if something like this does happen. Even if I did have to pay for the ambulance, it wouldn’t have cost as much as I’ve saved on health insurance throughout my life. Perhaps it’s easiest to say that I believe in health Assurance rather than health Insurance.
I would still have refused the ambulance, but I wanted that x-ray and there was no other way I was going to get it. So under the circumstances, I was glad for the free health care in NZ.
In the end, I’m fine. My kidneys were undamaged and torn muscles are not broken ribs. I never got the x-ray because the hospital doctor thought that anyone stupid enough to refuse pain killers for a broken rib clearly doesn’t have a broken rib.