American Morning
Calculating the risks of skiing in Quebec
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/04/09/gupta.mont.tremblant.jpg caption="Dr. Sanjay Gupta on assignment in Mont Tremblant, Canada."]
By Dr. Sanjay Gupta
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent
Watch Dr. Gupta's full report Thursday on AC360 at 10pm ET.
I just returned from Mont Tremblant, Canada. It is one of the more beautiful ski resorts in eastern, Canada, and it is also the place where actress Natasha Richardson fell and suffered a fatal brain injury. What caused her death is now well known, but there were some other details that struck me while I was there. Let me try and work through this with you.
What no one knew at the time was that she had hit her head hard enough to cause a fracture in her skull. Just underneath that fracture is a small blood vessel that runs just on top of the brain, and it was that blood vessel that started to bleed. By many reports, Richardson got up after her fall and felt well enough to go back to her room and wave off paramedics who had been called. In neurosurgery, we refer to this as a lucid interval. She may have lost consciousness briefly, but now felt fine. The problem for Natasha or anyone with an epidural hematoma is that the pressure continues to build up in the brain.
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Downhill skiing is potentially hazardous no matter where you ski in the world. Saying it is more dangerous in Canada, because there wasn't a helicopter ambulance available, is ridiculous. As I recall, Natasha Richardson refused a trip to the hospital by ambulance. So now it becomes Canada's fault because there was no helicopter ambulance available. Tell me Dr. Gupta, what the SOP is in these situations. If there had been a chopper available, would they have strapped her down against her will and hauled her off to the hospital? I live in a ski resort area, and the best way to protect yourself is not to have a chopper on standby but to wear a HELMET to protect the most important part of your body, your head. If they threw everybody who fell on the mountain here and hit there head, and seemed to be fine at the moment, into a chopper, we would see a huge increase in chopper to chopper accidents because the air would be filled with choppers. Instead of promoting the use of choppers( because this time it was someone famous?) maybe you should have suggested people protect themselves by wearing a HELMET. I would hope that you bring this up on AC360, but not everyone will be watching then. Seems prudent to warn people how to protect themselves before they get injured, instead of getting the chopper there ahead of a potential injury.