Mishaps & memories
BY KATH FOURIE
“Ah”, said the doctor at the hospital in
Kiruna, in the far northern reaches of
Sweden. “Skiing, yes?” Clearly I was not
their first idiotic novice skier.
The trip had started off so well. I was
21 and on a three-month exchange
programme with two fellow South
Africans. We planned a long weekend to
experience the snow in late March with
an exchange student from Spain and
made our way by train high up into the
Arctic Circle to the town of Kiruna in the
province of Lapland.
On a beautiful sunny morning we
boarded another train and jumped off at
a ski resort, the first time any of us bar
Adria, the Spaniard, had been in proper
snow. We forked out our krona and were
handed boots, skis and poles and sent
on our way. Adria showed us the basics
and we slid down the bunny slopes,
periodically slamming into the ground
and crawling upright again.
A few hours later we’d come along well
and were zipping down the beginner trails
with minimal upsets. When the slopes
were closing, I opted for a final run. One
fast and awkward fall later I was lying in
the snow, unable to move my left leg,
screaming “HELP!” at the top of my lungs.
After several eight-year-olds had
skied past me, ignoring my wailing pleas
for help and stylishly spraying slush
in my face, someone finally stopped
and alerted the ski mobile ambulance.
Naturally, the medic who arrived was
rather good looking, with spiky black hair
and rosy cheeks. After a brief exchange
of words he explained that he needed to
open up my fancy, borrowed ski pants,
which had convenient Velcro strips up
the sides. I froze. It was then, in rising
panic, that I realised I was wearing
underwear that looked like a sofa fabric
from That ‘70s Show, and I hadn’t waxed
my legs in more than three months. The
medic leaned over and expertly ripped
the Velcro aside, and I turned my head
to avoid his gaze. But I caught it anyway,
the look of someone on Fear Factor
having to eat maggots. Or maybe a
cow’s eyeball.
With my dignity and all but one of my
knee ligaments in shreds, my friends
managed to get me to the hospital,
where, at 1am, they finally drained a lot of
blood from my knee. On trying to leave,
I fainted at the door of the hospital. The
staff begrudgingly let me stay overnight,
while my friends sat in plastic lawn
chairs outside the backpackers’ drinking
cheap beer in the snow and admiring the
aurora borealis. I imagine it was the most
delicious beer they’d ever drunk.
Our Swedish lecturer organised my
emergency flight back to our town, and
I slept on his couch wearing clothes his
wife loaned me – including her underwear,
which was a lot more civilised than my
orange and brown daisy disasters.
To this day, I don’t regret the years of
trouble that knee has caused me, and
the impact it had on my sporting ability
– even my relationship – but I do regret
missing the green swirls of light in the
Arctic sky. If I had just made it out the
hospital door without fainting, I would
have seen them.
That said, the crutches I was given had
mini ice picks on the bottom. Not many
people in South Africa can claim 10 weeks
of ice-pick crutch action and being
pushed around in a shopping trolley
“borrowed” by one’s friends from the
local Lidl. You win some, you lose some,
I guess.
T A LES
FR OM
T HE
RO A D
MAKE MEMORIES FOR LIFE // 63