readersdigest.co.in 83Drama In Real Lifeemotional weight of the event began
to set in. Fitzpatrick was the first to
cry. But he wasn’t the last.
It took almost a full week to sort
through the extent of Crouch’s
injuries. Besides the knocked-out
teeth, he’d torn his pancreas and
fractured three vertebrae. He was
thankful to be alive, and still is.
“I thought I was dead,” he says.
Crouch had folded up
like a taco, and his
face was blue by the
time they got it
exposed. He wasn’t
breathing.“I honestly did.”
However, at no point in the
months since the accident has he
contemplated not getting back on
his snowboard. In fact, the thought
of returning to the sport has helped
him to focus through the pain
of his recovery.N
ot everyone on the
mountain that day sees it
the same way. For Campos,
last year’s ski season was the most
emotionally gruelling of his career,
while Fitzpatrick has spent months
questioning why he and Crouch
and the others even fathomed
putting their lives in danger for the
sake of a thrill and a film. Poole has
taken himself out of the heli-skiing
business. Although he says the timing
is a coincidence, he has struggled
with what happened. “That winter
affected me,” he says. “I’d be lying if I
said it didn’t.”
Last September, Stay Tuned—
the film Crouch was working
on—premiered in Zurich. Days after
that, and five months removed from
the ordeal, he got some good news
from his doctors. “Cleared to board,”
Crouch announced on social media,
along with the image of himself
being rolled into an MRI machine
after his fall.
And now he says he longs for a
return to the very ridge where he
nearly died. “I’d like to go back and
conquer that mountain.”