St John’s Presbyterian Church pastor Carlton Johnstone (48) said he was in "absolute agony" after a straightforward dismount from the Coronet Express chairlift went awry when he hit an icy section.
Mr Johnstone pushed off down the slope, with one foot out of his bindings, but his board hit ice and went from under him and he fell, causing an impact fracture.
He said the pain was a "nine or 10 out of 10" and he was close to losing consciousness afterwards.
"It was pretty intense.”
Coronet’s medical crew rendered assistance — one held his leg because he could not straighten it and another held up his back and kept him comfortable while he was given morphine and oxygen to numb the pain.
He was taken by helicopter to Southland Hospital for emergency surgery and faces a lengthy recovery.
ACC prevention leader Kirsten Malpas hopes to reduce skifield injuries such as Mr Johnstone’s through a new custom-made app.
Last year, ACC had 17,935 active claims by skiers and snowboarders injured on the slopes, at a cost of $29.4 million.
Of those, 6052 were in Otago, compared with 2197 in Manawatu-Whanganui and 2135 in Canterbury.
Ms Malpas said that ACC had been approached by SAANZ, which represents New Zealand’s commercial skifield interests, to help develop the National
Incident Data, or NID, app, for the ski industry.
It helps record, track and respond to near-misses and injuries as soon as possible, allowing ski area managers to respond and make decisions to improve safety if they see trends developing daily, weekly or seasonally.
It could also help to prevent future injuries — for example, if an operator saw a trend of near misses on a particular run, all by inexperienced skiers, they could revise the rating.
While Mr Johnstone did not blame anyone for his injury, he was supportive of the app.
"I imagine the staff on the mountain could see something like it’s quite icy around the Coronet Express chairlift, take extra care.
"So depending on people’s levels, they can manage that risk."
