“I hope and pray that this does not happen to you”: Injured skier issues passionate warning to overseas travellers

Injured skier, Rodnet Smith, offers critical advice on what to do if you sustain a serious injury on your overseas skiing holiday.

Below is a post from our private Facebook group, Ski & Snowboard Japan, republished with permission from group member Rodnet Smith. Rodnet suffered a broken tib/fib, ribs and whiplash on a recent ski holiday in Japan, caused by a rider crashing into him from above.

“I am also a fully trained adaptive guide with Disabled Wintersport Australia and as such more aware of safety on snow than the average person”, reveals Rodnet during our brief exchange. Even so, this happened, so you can only do your best.”

In an effort to help others avoid some of the challenges he faced through the process, Rodnet published the following warning to skiers travelling overseas:

The post

This is a pretty heavy topic which will be long and something that none of us want to experience. Hang in there as this may save you a lot of grief, time and effort. Unfortunately for us this became a reality on our trip to Japan.

I would like to share what we went through – as much as I can recall – and some advice for those considering a trip overseas.

Firstly and primarily, if you can’t afford travel insurance, DON’T GO!

Rodnet’s warning to members of the Ski & SNowboard Japan Facebook group

It is as simple as that. You are participating in a dangerous sport and it doesn’t matter how good a skier or boarder you are, you are still at risk. Case in point. I consider myself to be a confident and competent skier, strong in carving turns biomechanical improvement and off-piste, but that didn’t stop a snowboarder coming from above and blindsiding me, fracturing RHS ribs, breaking my RHS tib/fib and giving me a whiplash injury, then trying to blame me.

Before anyone jumps on the “bloody snowboarder” wagon, let’s remember that there are many skiers that are the same. It wasn’t the fact that he was a snowboarder, rather how he was riding that caused the incident.

Moving on. I want to highlight some dos and don’ts that I would encourage all to embrace, as well as what I had to do to be eligible for the insurance coverage.

First of all I had two insurance policies, [including] one just in case I went off-piste.

One was the complimentary one attached to our credit card and was the one that I claimed on. It was through Allianz.

1. Make sure that at least one in your group or family has a sim card that has a local phone number attached

Oh, the grief we encountered having a data only e-sim! Sure, it was fine when things were going well, but when the brown stuff hit the ventilator we were left with no way of making local calls or calls to our insurance company.

I downloaded some time on Skype, who, incidentally, are shutting down in May, but that was pretty hopeless.

Think of this as part of your insurance. If this ever happens to you, and I pray it never does, you will thank me. We had to do a three-way call through family in Australia on Facebook who then called the insurance arm of the bank for us. That took well over an hour. Thankful for family.

2. Know your insurance policy

It took me three days of stress and anxiety and close to over 30 emails back and forth to secure all we needed to have our claim accepted.

So before you leave home find out EXACTLY what your insurance company needs for a claim. I am a bit of a details person but still I had nowhere near what I needed.

I would suggest that you take a folder with you in your bag or perhaps pics of the relevant docs, including your insurance policy number and emergency contact details. Have receipts from your travel agent (if you use one) with your payment date and method of payment. I needed to substantiate [my claims] to the insurance company that I had purchased the flights prior to the accident date. Because we’d used frequent flyer points for them, this was an issue. I imagine that each company will be different in some aspect.

They also required photos of all our passports so that they could organise appropriate flights. Don’t try and play the martyr and downplay your injury to the insurance company. Remember if you are in cattle class on a 10-hour flight or more you will have to deal with it.

Get appropriate pain relief for the flight. I could not weight bear on my right leg and my ribs were painful. I spoke to the insurance company about appropriate analgesic pain relief for the flight and they organised an appointment with an English-speaking clinic in Tokyo.

We were upgraded to business class, which was a lifesaver. With the appropriate meds and the lay-flat seat, I was able to sleep for 7.5 hours. Remember pain will wear you out. They also organised a wheelchair on and off the plane and through customs and security at both ends. It was the quickest trip through customs that I have ever had as we were fast tracked.

3. On mountain

If you have an accident or collision on mountain and have someone with you, get ski patrol, make sure they make a report, and take a photo of the ski patrol report. If you have someone with you, get them to take photos of the incident site and, if possible, you in it. Take a note of exactly where you are. If you don’t know, ask or get the lat/long coordinates off a gps device.

These are all things that were asked of me by the insurance company.

4. Receipts

You will likely incur numerous out of pocket expenses associated with the injury. These may include, but are not limited to, taxi fares, additional accommodation, medical treatment costs, luggage and/or ski equipment transportation. We have documentation wallets for our trips that can go around your waist. I would suggest that if you have a safe location where you can put all your receipts it would help later on down the track as you will have to submit these to your insurance company for payment.

We were fortunate in having some friends who had already navigated this journey and gave us some valuable information.

As I previously said: I hope and pray that this does not happen to you, as I hoped it did not happen to me. But the reality of it is that it may happen, so be prepared.