Lake Louise has finally reacted after the injury of Manuel Osborne-Paradis. In the future, severely injured athletes will be brought directly to Calgary and will no longer be cared for in the Banff hospital.
The Canadian downhill racer did not arrive in Calgary until around 11 p.m. last Wednesday, more than ten hours after his tibia and fibula fracture suffered during the training run.
Similar things had happened on the Canadian World Cup race track before to other racers who had been seriously injured after crashes and three years ago to the Austrian Markus Dürager after a congruent injury.
The Austrian Ski Association (ÖSV) has reacted in such a way that this time two of its own doctors, Lukas Negrin (AKH Vienna) and Christian Süß, have been called up in North America to ensure even more athlete safety. The two accident surgeons had already participated in the season preparation training in Copper Mountain (USA) and Nakiska (CAN).
The organizers of the World Cup speed races in Banff National Park have had to put up with criticism for years because of the relatively long rescue chain. For legal reasons, the doctors of the ski teams may also only assist and translate on the route.
After the accident at Osborne-Paradis, the leadership of the ÖSV men’s team under Andreas Puelacher and the ÖSV physicians therefore approached the jury with the request to treat injured Austrians as directly as possible in Calgary. “There’s the opportunity to really take care of an athlete. Calgary is the only trauma center in the area,” Negrin said, welcoming the measure as well as Süß: “Now there’s this bypass, that’s good.”