I need to loose weight. I'm obese and I have multiple risk factors for heart disease. If I don't exercise I'm literally going to die. So, I did a lot of snowboarding this season. It was fun, and it helped. I lost 10 pounds. I was proud of myself and looking forward to next year. Then wham, some celebrity dies after an accident on the bunny slope and all of a sudden everyone thinks skiing is crazy! Besides the obvious high-risk activities such as smoking, being overweight, and failing to exercise, there are pastimes like skiing, riding a motorcycle, operating a motor vehicle without wearing a seatbelt, hunting, and consuming alcohol at neighborhood bars, which are consistently proven to subject the individual to injury or death at an inordinate rate.
Seriously? You're equating skiing with refusing to wear a seat belt? Maybe CNN will have a more balanced take? Accidents pick up in the afternoon -- a time ski patrollers call the "witching hour"
The "witching hour?" Do ski patrollers really call the afternoon the "witching hour?" Great. Maybe I should wear a helmet? "What we've found is that helmet usage did not affect fatalities," Byrd says. He says helmets tend to be helpful in preventing lesser head injuries such as scalp lacerations or mild concussions.
In almost a decade of snowboarding I've never gotten a scalp laceration or mild concussion and if I ever did get one of those things - it would heal. So there is no point in wearing a helmet, is there? Maybe I should try bicycling instead? Or perhaps surfing? According to the most recently available data from 2006, there were 2.07 skiing/snowboarding fatalities per million participants, whereas there were 29.4 bicycling fatalities per million participants, and 72.7 swimming fatalities per million participants.
Argh. Maybe there is some other sort of exercise I can engage in? The National Safety Council (Injury Facts, 2008 edition) points out: 44,700 Americans died in motor-vehicle accidents (2006); 6,100 pedestrians were killed (2006); 8,600 died from unintentional public falls (2006); 5,100 died from unintentional public poisoning (2006); 43 died from lightning (2006); and 67 died from tornadoes (2006).
Maybe the problem is more fundamental... Most fatalities occur in the same population that engages in high-risk behavior. Victims are predominantly male (85 percent) from their late teens to late 30s (70 percent)... Most of those fatally injured are usually above-average skiers and snowboarders who are going at high rates of speed on the margins of intermediate trails. This is the same population that suffers the majority of unintentional deaths from injury. For example, in 1995 this population suffered 74 percent of fatal car accidents and 85 percent of all industrial accidents, Dr. Shealy reports. Males comprise about 60 percent of skiing participants, and more than 75 percent of snowboarding participants.
Sigh. I can see where this is heading. Dangers of skiing -- chicagotribune.com | 
