SWITZERLAND – World Cup gold medallist Kris Mahler is recovering from a horrific neck injury the Canadian suffered racing that will sideline him for the rest of the ski cross season.
The Canmore skier’s C7 vertebrae, at the base of the neck, was severed during a heat on Tuesday (Dec. 12) at the FIS World Cup in Arosa, Switzerland after he flew off a jump and landed in a rut, pile-driving the 28-year-old head-first into the ground.
The crash, shared by Mahler on his Instagram, hurts to watch; however, showing unreal human fortitude, Mahler popped up after the ugly wipeout and skied the rest of the way down under his own strength before checking in with medical staff. He didn’t know the severity of the spinal injury until 24 hours later when he received an MRI.
“I could feel my back and neck were completely seized up and probably adrenaline was keeping me up at that point in time,” said Mahler. “I didn’t really have your classic cervical spine issues in terms of neurological impingements like the hand or feet. I still had full control of all of that stuff so, from my perspective, I just took a really hard hit.”
Mahler also injured his knee and ankle in the crash, but he added that he wasn’t knocked unconscious and there are no signs of a concussion.
A three-time World Cup medallist and national champion, Mahler said his season is likely over. He was given at least an eight-week timeline if everything heals properly, six weeks of which he’ll be in a full neck cast that goes from his belly button all the way up to his neck.
“They think because of the strength in my neck and training it kept it in a stable enough situation that it didn’t result in anything worse like [being] paralyzed or whatever,” said Mahler. “Yeah, [I’m] pretty lucky from that perspective to be walking.”
On the night of the race under floodlights, conditions “were not great” at the Swiss venue. Mahler said it was raining the morning of, which switched to approximately 15-20 centimetres of snow falling during the day. During the race, it rained again.
In ski cross, racers compete in heats with four skiers flying down the course at a time, going over bumps and jumps through gates.
Mahler said an accumulation of snow had built up at the bottom of the jump where the crash happened. Mid-air, he tried to avoid a collision with teamate Reece Howden and miscalculated the landing and the soft snow gave way.
Looking back, Mahler said if conditions had been different he probably wouldn’t have been injured. He hopes this injury will spark talks around safety measures.
“Hopefully conversations come up from this with FIS and the organizers and we kind of look at the safety in situations like this when conditions aren’t great,” he said. “I think there could have been some mitigation in that turn or all the way down the course just for some better up-keep of the course so there wouldn’t be that build up of snow and we wouldn’t result in that crash happening.”
The Outlook reached out to FIS and the organizing committee in Arosa and will update the story when possible.
After being stable enough to get on an airplane and fly, Mahler, wearing a neck brace for the foreseeable future, has returned to Canada for the recovery period.
Keeping a straight mind about it all, Mahler has been on the injured list before for lengthy periods. The skier was sidelined for two years with injuries in 2017, including a partial tear of the ACL in his knee.
However, despite the bad injury, he said he isn’t done with racing and still has many things to accomplish in the sport.
“It’s part of the game,” said Mahler. “If you want to play the game, you got to be willing to pay the price. That crash just happened to be a high price that day.”
