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Springy’s first wakeboard attempt |
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Monday, 05 January 2009 |
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 Generally when Jason shows up at the river it is for his daughters benefit because she enjoys tube riding behind Glen’s ski boat. Until today, Springy had refused any offer to participate on the grounds that he may injure himself. I’m not the only person who scoffed at that excuse because; let’s face it; statistically how many people actually get seriously injured while skiing? Unless of course they were being foolish or skiing close to the bank or other boats the likelihood is really very low.
Injury wasn’t Springy’s only reason for not participating, there were various other excuses he used but all resulted in remaining a spectator. This one time, everyone had been for a turn except Jason and on our return I asked Springy if we could persuade him to have a go and he agreed.
For the past few go’s Glen Parsons had been the driver while I had been a spotter, (the person who faces rearward to ensure the skier is ok) so I opted to be a spectator while Michael Newcombe spotted. I swapped with Michael while Jason suited up (put on his jacket and put on the board). For the next 15min or so Cameron Young, Marina Parsons and I had a good old chat about whatever was on our minds. Just then I commented to Cameron and Marina that we hadn’t seen the boat for quite a long time and that they must have gone a fair way up the river. Shortly after Michael returned in the ski boat by himself and informed us of the accident about 100m upstream.
According to Michael, Springy was really keen to get up on the water on his first outing. He was adamant that he was going to succeed but with successive tries comes tiredness which also makes a person sloppy in my opinion. Michael wasn’t quite sure of how the accident happened, or even what exactly caused Springy’s injury.
There are several staging areas along the river for skiers and their parties, the next being 100m upstream where the incident happened. The people in the area including Glen managed to drag Springy to the side and had someone call an ambulance. Colin Seyner was part of the crew upstream from us and did a great job of holding Jason’s leg straight until the ambulance people could apply a splint. There were more emergency service people in the end than ski crew people. There were 2 fire trucks, an ambulance, a news crew and a technical rescue unit on the scene. It took over 2 hrs to get Springy out of the water because the crew needed a basket which they didn’t have and had to go and get. The doctors later told Springy that Colin’s actions is what saved his leg from being amputated from the accident. According to the hospital staff, a percentage of people with that injury haven’t had their leg supported and consequently had the main artery pinched resulting in amputation. The actual injury was hyperextension at the knee which tore the lower leg out of its knee socket. There was quite a bit of damage which required knee reconstructive surgery and months of rehabilitation.
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