Injuries from winter sports and activities: Alpine skiing

Winter in Canada provides favourable weather conditions for outdoor sports and recreational activities, including skiing, snowboarding, ice skating and sledding. While there are numerous health benefits resulting from these sports and activities, there are also risks of serious injuries.^reference1-3 These risks highlight the importance of personal safety, such as wearing appropriate clothing and safety equipment, and ensuring your gear is in good condition. For more information on winter safety tips, please visit the following sites:

• Be prepared for winter weather
• Ice safety
• Sports gear safety tips
• Winter outdoor safety
• Skiing and snowboarding safety tips

Overall

Between October 1, 2016 and January 11, 2024 there were 5,434 alpine skiing-related injuries reported in the CHIRPP database, representing 690.5 cases per 100,000 CHIRPP records. Of these injuries, the average age among patients was 16.9 years and males represented the largest percentage at 57.8%. Among children, those aged 5 to 9 years represented 43.3% of all cases (Table 1). Among those injured, 66.7% (n = 3,622) stated that they were wearing safety equipment when the injury occurred.^reference1

Type of injury

Shown below in Table 2 are the types of injuries resulting from the reported alpine skiing-related injuries. Representing over a third of all injuries and the largest percentage (39.4%) were fractures. Soft tissue injuries (17.2%) and dislocations/sprains /strains/pulled elbows (14.5%) were the second and third most common types of injuries reported, respectively. Table 3 provides a breakdown of the body regions where the fractures occurred. Of the 2,139 reported fractures, the upper and lower extremity regions were similar in terms of distribution. With respect to the upper extremity region, wrist fractures were most common, whereas lower leg fractures were more common in the lower extremity region.

Event circumstances associated with fractures

Table 4 shows the event circumstances associated with the reported fractures. A 30% random sample of all fractures (n = 642) showed that falls represented the highest percentage of cases at 67.0%. Following this category, the second and third most common circumstances were fractures involving jumps (12.6%) and individuals coming into contact with stationary objects/structures, such as trees, rocks and chair lift poles (8.9%).

Emergency department outcomes

Table 5 presents a breakdown of the emergency department outcomes of the reported alpine skiing-related injuries. Of the 5,434 records, the majority of patients required treatments in the emergency departments (58.4%). There were 404 reported hospital admissions, and of these, 74.8% were associated with fractures and 7.5%, with injuries to internal organs.