A Word From... >> Shelby Ganitch

Shelby's Story

18-year old Shelby Ganitch suffered a traumatic brain injury while snowboarding at a California resort. The accident happened while jumping a small terrain park feature. Unfortunately, Shelby was not wearing a helmet at the time of her fall. As a result, Shelby spent weeks in a coma and then years in therapy recovering from her injury. The following is Shelby's heroic story of returning to the sport she loves and bringing with her a message for others about the importance of wearing a helmet.

(PHOTO: Shelby, pictured right,hitting the slopes with a friend in 2006).

On March 2, 1999, I was snowboarding. I was a freshman in college, had my own pass, and was going up a few times a week. This was definitely the first season that I could really carve a turn. I would still say that I was a beginner. My problem on the slopes was that I was very timid out there and afraid to try anything. The only way you get better is if you try stuff, right? WRONG!! I had grown up on skis and learned to snowboard when I was 15, vowing never to go back to skis. On this particular day, I had friends with me so that gave me confidence to try jumps. I was in a freestyle park and my girlfriend and I were taking pictures of each other going off small to midsize jumps.

I got up to a jump that didn’t look very big. My friend was waiting to take a picture at the bottom of the jump. As I rode up the jump, I speed checked (turned on my edge to slow down). It was a lot bigger than I thought. Since I was basically stopped, I figured I would just roll over it, no big deal. But, I was going too fast to roll over it, and too slow to clear it, so in the air my board went straight down into the snow. I landed on the right side of my head and it knocked me out immediately. Two men were at the top of the run and saw this happen so they yelled for ski patrol. When the ski patrol got to me I wasn’t breathing, my feet and my arm were posturing and my teeth were clenched shut. He said it did not look good so he called down to the bottom to make sure an ambulance would be there as well as a helicopter in the landing spot. He pointed his skis straight down and prayed that help would be there or I wouldn’t make it. When we got to the bottom, the ambulance was there, thank God.

In the ambulance they performed a tracheotomy to open my airways, allowing me to breathe. I was still unconscious when they put me in the helicopter and airlifted me to San Bernardino County Hospital. When I first arrived there, they contacted my parents and told them to come.

They took one CAT scan and it didn’t look that bad. They thought that I would wake up in a few hours with a headache. When my parents arrived they were horrified. It is a parent’s worst nightmare to see their child so helpless. The minutes turned into hours which turned into days and eventually weeks. The nightmare kept getting worse. Every CAT scan that they took showed more and more extensive damage. My brain was still swelling. I was on life support. I had lost probably 20 pounds and the outcome was not good at all.

All the media and newspapers were writing articles almost every day. They had press conferences about it. I had visitors every day and prayer chains going around the world. The support that I got was unbelievable. My parents kept their hopes up. One horrifying day, a doctor came into my room where my mom was holding onto my lifeless hand and he told her, “This is the part of my job that I hate the most. You are probably not going to have your little girl back.” My amazing Mother said to him with tears running down her face, “You don’t know my little girl and she will not give up. She is a fighter.” A couple days later I opened my eyes. It didn’t mean anything, but it was something. They transferred me to Long Beach Memorial Hospital because it was right in the middle of them tearing down San Bernardino Hospital. At Long Beach Hospital I opened my eyes more frequently, following some signs with my eyes, but not much. The left side of my body was not moving. Because I hit on my right side, it affected my left side. They thought my left side was permanently paralyzed.

The first thing I remember when I woke up was my dad sitting next to me and holding my hand saying that I’ve had an accident and it looked real bad right now but everything was going to be okay. He just kept saying that over and over. I looked down at the foot of my bed and saw three doctors talking quietly. I had casts on both of my legs, and my arm and I had something in my mouth so I couldn’t talk. I was not afraid. I believed my dad when he assured me everything was going to be okay.

I was 18 years old when I had my accident and after coming out of the coma, I had the mentality of a child. I had to learn to walk again, talk again, eat, feed myself, bathe myself, and be 18 again. It took so long and I still notice things today that I am able to do for the first time since the accident. My whole motivation was to get on a snowboard again. Everyone told me I was crazy but I knew that my injury was simply an accident, a lack of judgment on my part. I was determined to get out there and do it again.

I went back two years later to Snow Summit, took lessons, and learned the right way. I faced my fear. It has been eight years and I can honestly say now that I am a good rider. I wear a helmet. Now I use good judgment and I don’t try something that I am not ready for.

My message is this. A helmet is most effective at slower speeds. My life would not have changed if I was wearing a helmet. Because I wasn’t wearing one, my life and everyone’s lives around me turned upside down for nearly a month. As a parent you do not want to see your child lifeless and helpless. That is the worst thing, I think, ever. My mom has a constant reminder of that every day when she thinks of what a miracle I truly am. I got lucky. Most people don’t get a second chance and I feel like the reason I did is because I am going to save lives by sharing with people on an incident that could happen to anyone.

(PHOTO: Shelby back on a snowboard - Spring Break 2007).

Shelby’s contact information: shelbylganitch@yahoo.com