Colin Frans getting sent to the hospital, seemingly unphased by having his wrist sliced open. Photo: Colin Frans
Snowboarding injuries are common, but one usually doesn’t expect them to be inflicted by your own board. And yet, a young rider received a terrifying self-inflicted injury last week, in the middle of a trick, no less.
The accident occurred during the Aspen Rev Tour men’s rail jam. As 16-year-old Colin Frans recounted in an Instagram post, during a practice run he attempted a cab 2 pretz 2 (270-degree spin onto the rail, another 270 in the opposite direction on the exit). As he attempted the trick, his board made contact with his wrist and sliced it open.
Immediately following the injury, North Star Resort snowboard coach Andy Weaver applied a tourniquet to Colin’s wrist, while fellow rider Erik Rux wrapped a sweatshirt around the wound to stop the bleeding. Frans was then rushed to Aspen Valley Hospital emergency surgery, where doctors discovered that he had completely severed not only his ulnar artery, but also the median nerve.
Though they were able to reattach both in the initial procedure, a follow up exploratory surgery was scheduled for when Franz returned home. That second surgery took six hours, during which doctors repaired 10 severed tendons and grafted a donor nerve from his leg to repair the severed ulnar and median nerves.
“[The doctor] said I came close to having the radial artery cut,” wrote Frans. “I was very lucky. Had I have cut the radial artery as well I would have lost my hand. He feels good about the repairs he made and my recovery.”
In addition to a thank you to Weaver and Rux for their quick actions immediately following the accident, Frans shared a heartfelt and optimistic message for his followers. “I also wanna say thank you to the snowboard community, the homies, family and even those of you who don’t even know me for all of the support and prayers,” he concluded. “You guys have given me more than enough motivation for this recovery. Hoping to be back on bags this fall and back on snow by next season.”
