Be careful during the sports holidays! 30 percent more ski accidents than last year

The sky is blue, the sun slowly emerges from behind the mountain top and there is plenty of snow: perfect skiing weather in Davos and conditions just like in the advertising brochure. Marcel Flütsch is also on the slopes with his friends today. But a turn to the left proves fatal for the 53-year-old. He falls and is thrown about 100 feet through the air. Then he ends up in deep snow: broken pelvis, Rega, hospital.

This weekend the sports holidays start in many cantons of Switzerland. This not only means a lot of traffic towards mountain areas, but also more work for Rega, hospitals and emergency services.

Every year, more than 70,000 people have an accident while practicing winter sports. The most injured are 50,000 people on skis. Nearly 10,000 people are injured every year while snowboarding. Fewer accidents occur in cross-country skiing, tobogganing and ski touring, but they still exceed the 1,000 mark. This is evident from the five-year average of the Accident Prevention Advisory Center (BFU).

The 50,000 skiers who have accidents annually, converted into a five-month ski season, result in approximately 333 ski accidents per day. With a ski area operating for a maximum of nine hours a day, someone is injured every two minutes on the Swiss slopes. Right now a skier has an accident.

The canton hospital of Graubünden was busier this winter than in recent years. This year’s holiday season saw about 30 percent more injuries than the same period last year, said Christoph Sommer, head of accidents and general surgery. “More people have been injured during winter sports than ever before in our hospital,” he adds.

The Graubünden Cantonal Hospital is located in Chur and is not only a central hospital, but also one of twelve trauma centers in Switzerland. This means that they also treat potentially seriously injured people in the cantons of Graubünden, Glarus and parts of St. Gallen and Liechtenstein.

Serious injuries include head or organ injuries. “Most seriously injured people in winter are skiers,” Sommer said. This is three quarters, a quarter consists of snowboarders. The numbers were around a thousand people last season. “There are days when forty injured people come to the hospital,” he continues.

This winter, the Cantonal Hospital of Graubünden has more minor and less serious injuries. Minor injuries include a broken arm or leg.

In the two winter sports of alpine skiing and snowboarding, there are not only differences in the number of accidents, but also in the types of injuries. Snowboarders are more likely to injure their wrists or shoulders. Knee injuries are the most common among skiers. Lower legs or ankles are also often affected.

In addition to these injuries, spinal fractures are also common. Most can be treated without surgery, but severe fractures can lead to paralysis due to spinal cord injury. “Last winter we had about eight spinal injuries, this year two,” says Christoph Sommer.

After two minutes, another skier was injured.

According to the BFU, a total of 35 people died from various winter sports between 2017 and 2021. Most fatal accidents occurred during off-piste ski touring. A total of four people died on the ski slope.

Summer said the frequency of injuries this winter would be related to snow conditions. He explains it this way: “The less snow and the nicer the weather, the more accidents happen.” If there is no real snow, the ski areas can help with artificial snow. The problem: the artificial snow is denser and harder than the natural snow and the slopes are usually perfectly prepared.

That’s why snow sports enthusiasts travel at higher speeds. The BFU says about artificial snow: “The risk of injury is probably greater due to the higher forces acting on the body.”

Due to the lack of natural snow, the slopes are becoming increasingly narrow and there is hardly any snow next to them. “The frequency of collisions is increasing, people are colliding more often and more and more people are seriously injured,” says Sommer. But this winter there is enough snow in Graubünden and there is a trend towards fewer seriously injured people.

At another trauma center, the Inselspital in Bern, the situation is different: “We cannot confirm this trend,” says Daniel Saameli, media spokesperson for the archipelago, when asked. He goes on to say that the number of seriously and seriously injured people is likely to be at the same level as last year. However, it is still too early to take stock. Yet all trauma centers experience a similar situation: surgeons are especially busy on weekends and during holidays.

As the media office of the Graubünden Cantonal Hospital says, the hospital in Chur receives the second most flights from Rega. Rega does not provide information about the exact numbers of the various arrival destinations. The number of injured people is communicated: Rega transports between 1,300 and 1,700 winter sports enthusiasts who have had an accident every year.

That’s only about 2.7 percent of all winter sports accidents on Swiss slopes, says David Suchet, media spokesman for Rega. All other accident victims reach hospitals by ambulance, emergency service or privately.

Another two minutes pass and a skier has an accident.

In the period from December 1 to January 15, 2024, Rega visited approximately 560 winter sports enthusiasts who had had an accident. A year earlier there were 345. As Suchet goes on to say, she had to expect more missions during nice winter weekends or during holiday periods. That is why they station extra rescue helicopters at certain points.

The number of injuries in the Graubünden region did not only increase on the ski slopes. According to the Graubünden Cantonal Hospital, injuries are also increasing in snow parks. “If you see Andri Ragettli on TV and you want to imitate his tricks, but you don’t know how to do it, you can hit the ground from a height of five meters,” says Sommer.

There are also more injuries among cross-country skiers. Sommer sees the busy ski slopes as one of the reasons. The busier the ski slopes, the more people would switch to the cross-country trails. Some accidents also happen on the toboggan runs. In the canton hospital of Graubünden, sledding accidents are responsible for approximately five percent of the winter sports accidents treated. According to Sommer, spinal fractures are, among other things, a typical injury in sledding.

There are several reasons why more accidents happen. One of them: “It often happens that the speed and choice of track do not match their own abilities and that drivers overestimate themselves,” says Sommer. According to Suva, people often overestimate their own fitness, don’t wear enough equipment or don’t warm up enough for the trip.

And again someone gets hurt on the ski slope. Ultimately, more than 300 skiing accidents will occur in Switzerland. About 10,000 were injured by the end of the month.