Hagood showing his new “piercing.” Photo: GoFundMe
A ski instructor at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort has earned the nickname “Lipstick” after a tree-bashing injury that resulted in a stick in the lip. Or more accurately: getting impaled in the lip by a hefty, 18-inch branch.
Twenty-nine-year-old Natty Hagood, riding a snowboard at the time, was on his first run of the day last week. He had just dipped into some trees when he whacked a branch. Thinking a tree had pushed up his chin strap, he felt the branch sticking into one side of his lower lip and out the other side.
When he realized he’d been impaled, the snowboarder told his friend, “Hey, look! I got a new piercing.”
“I thought maybe my chin strap got pushed up into my face, so I tried to brush it off and that’s when I felt the stick,” Hagood reportedly said. “So, I shook left to right and saw the stick moving in my peripherals. I reached out and grabbed it and wiggled it before realizing it was pretty far in there.”
Ski patrol stabilized the branch in his lip and carted Hagood off to a hospital, where doctors trimmed the branch and pushed it back out the way it entered.
Despite having a case of what Hagood calls “PTS-Tree,” he’s doing okay, except for the $1,500 hospital bill. But even that is taking care of itself. He launched a GoFundMe campaign seeking $1,500 and has already raised nearly $2,200.
On the GoFundMe page, Hagood says that the money raised will more than cover the medical bills and any extra funds “will go towards the development of the youth-centered outdoor environmental education program I am founding this summer in Colorado.”
Hagood is recovering just fine. “When I laugh, I have to hold the left side of my face down at this weird angle that makes me look like this crotchety old man,” he said. “And I drool more than I used to.”
Coincidentally, Hagood is the same snowboarder who appeared in a recent viral video breaking up a fight between a skier and snowboarder. In the video, below, he jumps off his skis and dives into the action. It’s been an eventful season for this guy.
