When Karma Strikes Back
Skiing is a sport that millions across the world participate in, but like driving a car, many are unaware of the accidents that can happen. There are hundreds of obstacles that can cause a skier to lose control, including people.
Wade Sousa, a current student at Colorado State University, is one of those skiers who lost control. It was April 9, 2017, and Sousa was skiing his last run down on Keystone Resort in Keystone, Colorado with several friends. He was on a small catwalk and saw something lying in the snow. He told his friend, Jordan Zall, to stop and grab it. It turned out to be a GoPro HERO Session. They decided that they will probably never find the owner, so they planned to sell it and split the profit.
The Accident
Karma has been known to strike back with a vengeance, and that is exactly what happened to Sousa. Minutes after picking up the GoPro and putting it in his pocket, he was making his way down the catwalk when a skier cut him off.
“At this point of the run no one is making turns and everyone goes straight,” Sousa said, “expecting this I was comfortably passing everyone on it when all of the sudden the person in front of me turned to the side to hit a side jump.”
Sousa had to react quickly and unfortunately went too far off of the trail into a ramp on the side of the run. He hit the ramp going about 35 mph and flew directly into a cluster of rocks rear-end first. “Somehow I had fallen fifteen feet from the side of the trail and was now in the center,” Sousa said.
Matthew Hoeffler, a close friend to Sousa, said, “I knew he was in an unbelievable amount of pain because he was immediately screaming when I got down to him.”
The skier who cut Sousa off said it was no one’s fault and skied down, which according to the Keystone Ski Patrol, was legally a hit and run.
Sousa’s initial assumption was that he had broken his shins due to the severe shin-bang he received from the accident. Jordan Zall, also skiing with Sousa that day, said, “It’s hard to watch a friend in so much pain.” After he refused Zall’s suggestion to try to ski down and drive back to the Colorado State University Medical Center, ski patrollers put Sousa in a sled and skied him down to the Keystone hospital.
Receiving the News
After receiving an X-ray on his shins, doctors told Sousa they were probably just badly bruised and asked him to stand. He began stretching and felt stiffness in his back. Sousa’s cousin had suffered a back injury previously and is now a quadriplegic with no feeling from his neck down, so Sousa was not going to take any risks. He asked the doctors to conduct another X-ray, but this time on his back.
When Sousa exited the scanning room, Hoeffler told him that the hospital would probably discharge him soon after. As soon as that was said, a doctor came into the room with the results of the second X-ray, and Sousa’s life changed in an instant. The doctor said that Sousa had a broken spine and needed to be transported to the St. Anthony Summit Medical Center in Frisco, Colorado.
Sousa is known for having a humorous personality, and in the ambulance ride to the hospital, he told a joke to the paramedic sitting next to him. “100 percent of serious ski accidents happen on the last run,” Sousa said, “Get it? Because if you’re seriously injured, you can’t do another run.” Sonny May, a classmate of Sousa, said, “Wade has a unique sense of humor that can make anyone laugh.”
Once arriving at the hospital, doctors conducted more scans on Sousa’s back and eventually decided that he would need a spine fusion. Paramedics then transported Sousa to another hospital in Denver, where he was met by Hoeffler and another close friend, Luke Kallner.
The mood was positive, and they were all cracking jokes until the doctor came in with a piece of information that has the potential to scare anyone. “With this spine fusion comes a 10 percent chance of you never being able to walk again,” the doctor said. At that moment, Sousa’s attitude completely changed and a tear slipped from his eye.
Kallner, who was in the room with Sousa when the doctor said he has a 10 percent chance of paralysis, said, “When the doctor presented Wade with that piece of information, his reaction was one word:
‘F***.’”
The Operation and Recovery
The spine fusion was set to take place the next day, and Sousa’s parents immediately booked plane tickets to be with him before the operation. The surgery fused three vertebrae with six screws and two rods in Sousa’s back that will forever remain there.
Fortunately, the surgery went well, and Sousa did not suffer any paralysis. The doctors gave him painkillers, which he lived on 24/7 for the next week.
Sousa’s recovery process was an intense one.
He had to wear a back brace at all times except for when he was lying down. “The muscle spasms from the surgery were so bad, and the pain was so bad that lying down in the bed felt like I was trying to sleep on a metal handrail with all of the pressure directly on my spine,” he said. He spent a week living in the hospital and went from walking two feet one day, to the door the next, and eventually to the hallway and stairs.
On his last day in the hospital, Sousa managed to get out of bed, bathe himself with a washcloth and get dressed without bending his spine at all. “I remember tying my shoes that day was probably the hardest thing of my life,” he said.
The day after doctors released Sousa from the hospital was Easter. He and his family went to church to celebrate. “I will never forget the point in Catholic Mass when you’re supposed to kneel. It would have been perfectly acceptable for me to sit, but I gave my everything and tried to kneel,” Sousa said, “I almost broke down in tears because at that moment I realized just how thankful I was to still be able to do that.”
Sousa continued his recovery process. With his spine fusion, he was not allowed to pick up anything over 10 pounds for three months. “I couldn’t even wear my backpack, so I had to get a sachel,” Sousa said. He was unable to fly for a few months but managed to go on a road trip to Oklahoma State University with Hoeffler to spend time with a childhood friend. He did not tell his mother that he went until he was driving back to Colorado, and she was less than pleased.
On his two week checkup, Sousa asked his doctor to perform an X-ray on his thumb because he had been feeling consistent pain and noticed it had been popping out a bit. The results came back, and Sousa learned that he had broken his thumb in the same accident. The next week, he went to a thumb doctor, and she informed him that he had a torn ligament and would need another surgery.
The surgery took place exactly a month after Sousa’s spine fusion, and doctors placed four pins inside his thumb. They removed the pins after a month and put a cast around his thumb.
That summer, Sousa visited Sequoia, Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks as well as Alaska all during the month of June. “One time coming back from Yosemite with my friend, we stopped at a famous ice cream shop to get ice cream,” he said, “The old lady serving me saw my cast, not knowing about my back, and asked what happened.” Sousa explained that he had been in a ski accident, and the lady asked if he would ever ski again. “I remember there was no hesitation and no thought in saying of course,” he said.
Sousa’s goal was to be able to ski the next season but chose not to purchase a pass until doctors cleared him to ski in August 2017. Sousa spent vigorous amounts of time doing physical therapy, and by the time he was moving back into school, he was still unable to move most of his stuff.
Sousa was able to ski that season successfully with no further injuries and is forever thankful to continue to have the ability to walk.
“I sold that GoPro and got rid of the curse it had,” Sousa said, “This all made me realize that karma really sucks.”
