March 29, 2009
Dear Committee Chair,
My name is Andrea Cooper and my Pairs Partner, Lee Jones, and I had a very serious accident in Lake Placid at the 2008 Adult Nationals. Lee and I had been doing overhead lift for several years without incident, but on Saturday April 12th we fell out of an overhead back press lift. We would like to take this opportunity to share with you circumstances that surrounded this accident.
On Wednesday April 9th at the Lake Placid Adult National Championships, Lee and I placed 2nd in the Adult Gold Pairs event where we preformed three lifts without any problem, which included the split twist, platter lift and the back press lift. Our next event was a qualifying event, Championship Pairs, and was held on Saturday evening. We arrived for the official USFS 20-minute sanctioned warm up, which was right before our event, to find that nine (9) pair teams had been scheduled for this practice. This practice ice was in Rink 1932; this rink is somewhat isolated from Rink 1980 and the USA Rink in the Olympic Center. At the same time that we were scheduled for this practice, competitions were taking place in Rink 1980. Rink 1932 is a bit of a walk from the other two rinks. We also arrived at this practice ice to find the absence of a monitor who was supposed to be present with a walkie-talkie (I believe that it is a rule that every USFS sanctioned ice has a monitor present.) So, none of us knew what do to and had no means of communication with the Chief Referee. The Pair teams figured out a plan to handle this situation; we all agreed to keep the lift lanes clear as much as possible and the team setting up for a lift would scream "LIFT" coming down the diagonal lift lane.
I was the first skater to step on this ice, and I saw many holes in the surface, one of which went clear down to the concrete, so I turned around to Lee and said this is bad, and I skated over to the Zamboni door to get the ice bucket to patch up the holes. When I arrived at the Zamboni door I found it locked from the other side with the ice bucket on the other side of the door. Moreover, the Zamboni wasn’t in the dock, which seemed odd. So, this was all very strange and I turn around to Lee only to see that all the other teams had taken the ice and were starting to practice. The pressure was enormous, so Lee and I just looked at each other and said, “Okay, let's get to work.” So, we put out our first lift, a platter lift, and it was fine. Then two more teams put out lifts. Then Lee and I looked at each other and said "let's just put out our last lift, the back press lift, and then we can practice other things" Wow, I wish I could take that moment back. As we set up for this lift we screamed "Lift" and I went up in the smoothest cleanest mount that we ever did (some of the other skaters who saw this said the mount was very good and strong.) The next thing I know, I'm thinking to myself "WOW, this Lift feels very LIGHT!" It felt so good. But what I didn't know was that Lee was no longer under me and I was experiencing hang time, and then it was all over, because I crashed down to the ice and hit. Lee said he watched me fall, and because of the momentum we had created, I actually completed one rotation in the air all by myself. I hit really hard in a sitting position, because I'm essentially in a sitting position in that lift when in the air. I must have fallen from 8' feet to the ice. I knew the minute I hit that two things had broken deep within my body.
Next, since we were without a monitor there was no walkie-talkie with which to call for help. I was told after the fact that a few of the other pairs men quickly put on their guards and started running out into the hall. Apparently they ran right into a janitor with a walkie-talkie and called over to Rink 1980 where the competition was being held, and an announcement was made over the loud speaker to send a Paramedic team to Rink 1932. One of my friends, Larry Scaliba, who was sitting in the audience watching the competition, came running over and was the first one at my side who was a medical person. Larry is a neurologist. It took the Paramedics 20 minutes to get over to me. By the time they got to me I had gone into shock, because I had been lying on the ice for too long. Many of the other skaters were throwing their sweaters on top of me to try to keep me warm (I have since purchased two space thermal blankets that come in a small packet that are less than 2 ounces and in a 5" x 5" packet. Lee and I now keep one in each of our skating bags.) Finally the ambulance came. I spent the next two days on morphine in the hospital, because I sustained a compression fracture to my L1 vertebra and a fracture to my sacrum.
I spent the next six weeks in a back brace, and completed 10 weeks of physical therapy, both on the land and in water. When I first had the accident, I couldn't walk or stand up for several days, then slowly but surely I could sit up for five minutes each day, and walk a few steps. To date, I can walk 2 miles now, and can use the stationary bicycle for 40 minutes. I have to add that even though this was a pretty horrible accident, I’m very lucky that it wasn’t worse, which it very easily could have been.
So, what happened? Well, when I returned home to recover, I received an email from the Chief Referee saying, " I heard about your accident, hope you get better," and that was it. So, I wrote back to her and said, "Why on earth did you schedule nine (9) pair teams to a 20-minute practice session?!" She said, "I didn't do that!" So, I said the website only had one practice on the schedule for Championship Pairs and nine (9) teams entered the event. So I emailed her the link, because the schedule was still up on the website. Moreover, 800 skaters received this exact same schedule in their welcome bags! She started blaming the ORDA office for the mistake (this the Olympic Center’s main office), but admitted that she never took a look at the final schedule when it came out. So, I called the ORDA office and the secretary that was working with the referee on this schedule said that she had sent her so many revisions that by the time it was ready to publish, she was totally confused about which one was the finally schedule. By the way, the same exact thing happened with the Championship Dance competition.
To make matters worse, several weeks after the accident, I read on one of the skating forums that the Zamboni for Rink 1932 had died on Wed. night, and they never fixed or replaced it. So, there was just one Zamboni that was being used between 3 rinks! The two rinks, 1980 and USA rink are back-to-back, so that wasn't a problem, but to cut the ice where we had the accident they had to drive the Zamboni onto Main Street in Lake Placid to get to the third rink. So, the ice that we had our 20-minute practice scheduled upon appeared to have been practiced on several times that day without an ice cut. To make matters even worse, during the time of our accident, it turned out that Rink USA was totally empty and had a freshly cut ice. Assigning nine (9) pair teams to an NHL surface with badly holed uncut ice is a recipe for disaster. The irony of this entire thing is that for the past six years I had been writing letters to Local Organizing Committee Chairs and Referees of USFS Sanctioned Adult events asking them to PLEASE schedule Pairs Competitions where overhead lifts are a part of the well-balanced program after an ice cut and to PLEASE limit the number of teams to four, or five at the most at anyone time.
As a result of this accident, and a history of overcrowding on practice ice and sanctioned ice at a variety of USFS Sanctioned Adult Qualifying Championship events we would like to request a rule change in the USFS Rulebook that would help reduce the odds of an accident, such as the one we had, from happening again. We have drafted a Request for Action, which accompanies this letter for your review and consideration.
We would like to thank you in advance for your time and consideration of this very serious matter. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need additional explanations, or material. We are easily reached by email: acooper19426@earthlink.net
Andrea Cooper:
