Last summer the Journal of Wilderness & Environmental
Medicine published a study on injuries sustained at the Whistler Bike Park from
the summer of 2009 (Volume 23, Issue 2 , Pages 140-145, June 2012; link at end
of article). The researchers reviewed charts from the medical clinic at the
base of Whistler Mountain and analyzed those injuries identified as originating
from the bike park.
Some of the highlights:
• For the year under study, 898 visits to the clinic were
from injuries sustained from the Whistler Bike Park (this represents 5% of
annual clinic traffic)
• 12% arrived with potentially life threatening injuries,
and 9.5% were transferred to higher care
• 19% arrived escorted by bike patrol, and 8.4% via EMS
(signifying the more serious injuries)
Some of the more surprising points (for me):
• Of the 898 injuries, 382 were fractures (mostly
arm/shoulder) however 4.7%/21 injuries were vertebrae, one a C7 break resulting
in quadriplegia. These vertebrae breaks were primarily lower back – somewhat
unexpected to me – but highlights the speed and immense impact DH riding
crashes carry. Of course, the issue with any spine injury, especially cervical
is the immense potential severity of it, even if the numbers here show the
frequency is low.
• 101/11.2% traumatic brain injuries. Wow. The medical charts
did not indicate how much protective gear riders were wearing (other than the
assumed mandatory helmet) but with what we are beginning to understand about
the severity of even minor concussions and their long term debilitating effect,
this is a significant number.
The study itself is simple and well presented (wearing my
academic hat),but does not offer much for us to chew on (wearing my adventure
management hat). Here are some things to consider:
• The data was collected from the Whistler clinic. Any
critical trauma likely was heli’d straight from the mountain to the hospital,
skipping the clinic stop. This means the injuries here may be under reported,
especially for the cervical and head injuries – the two areas that concern me
the most from this data. Bike Park patroller friends of mine anecdotally report
2 heli evacs per day on summer weekends. It is safe to assume they are going
straight to hospital and not the clinic.
• The article did not have user days to create injury rates.
According to Bike Park staff they are doing about 120,000 user days for biking
last year (recall the injury data was 2009). If we use the 2009 injuries with
today’s user days, that gets a .007 or 7 of every 1000 riders is injured. This
is not strictly correct, as I suspect 09 had fewer user day’s than last year.
Correct me if I’m wrong. Whistler’s own data (again from staff this year)
estimate their injury rate to be 3 in a 1000. The research data suggests this
is unlikely and too low.
So what does all this tell us? The injury rates themselves
are moderate, I would say. I’m not alarmed by a 7/1000 but it is very high
compared to other activities. It is the nature of the injuries, though. 11%
head injuries is very high (by my risk tolerance and compared to other adventure
activities), with potential for immense severity and lifelong implications.
Whistler singlehandedly created the A Line movement – the smooth, fast, machine
sculpted flow trails with jumps and berms. This has essentially changed the
face of DH and free ride biking, but it has also increased the speed tenfold
over traditional technical singletrack DH, and therefore opened the door to the
serious injuries hinted at in these findings. Having said this Whistler Bike
Park does lift serviced biking better than anybody. The data notes only 4
injuries due to collision, which is a reassuring number and suggest trail
design and traffic flow are well managed.
The article astutely asks “Is this an acceptable level of
risk in a high-velocity sport?” specifically in regards to the head injuries.
For me, I suggest it is too high. Some management structures can be put in
place to bring speeds down while maintaining the character of the ride, and of
course Leatt style neck braces seem to be on the right track. Perhaps they will
become required and accepted like full face helmets have become. I don’t think
there is one answer, but a combination of strategies can be put into place to
lower the number of broken bodies associated with this sport.
Full article: http://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(12)00015-4/fulltext