Rick beat me to the punch! But, yes, SherpaK gave me a buzz this morning and wanted to thank everyone for their kind thoughts. It means the world to him.
But he also wanted to make sure we didn't go out hunting for any malicious hit-and-run skiers. He chalks it all up to a freak accident _ "as freak an accident as freak can be." He believes he might have caught a patch of ice, and then was sent down the embankment and into the tree. ... It was an innocent accident and no one was at fault."
He describes the injuries as: 4-5 broken ribs on his left side, 1-2 broken ribs on his right side, a broken collarbone, a shoulder that is either dislocated or broken, a concussion with some bleeding on the brain, and slight nerve damage that is preventing him from focusing. He is in a lot of pain, as one can imagine.
It may take about six weeks for his bones to heal, but six months total for him to recover from all of his injuries. He hopes to be in Massachusetts _ if not home, at possibly a rehab facility _ on Saturday, but that all remains up in the air.
Lastly, he just wants to say that he is very thankful and appreciative for how Killington handled him and the accident. It took him about 25 minutes or so of yelling to get someone's attention, and once he did, they had to get him up a steep slope to get him down to the base.
BTW, he's off the morphine (and no leftovers!). While his body took quite the beating, he says his doctors are amazed at how his body handled it _ and he and his doctors are convinced that his years of hiking are a big reason why he was able to pull through this as well as he did.
