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Article: Downhill Skiing: Is It Becoming Safer?; Fractures are Fewer, But Serious Knee Injuries Have More Than Doubled
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- December 20, 1988
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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Downhill skiing has come a long way from the days when skiers
walked up the hills they skied down, with little more than wooden
planks lashed to their boots by leather straps.
Not only has equipment changed dramatically in the past 50 years,
so have injuries. Whereas skiers once suffered a significant number
of sprained ankles and fractured tibiae (shinbones), today's skiers
face a high rate of serious knee injuries.
Dr. Robert Johnson and his colleagues have studied ski injuries
for the past 15 years at the Sugarbush ski area in northern Vermont.
During that time, they found that injuries in general have been cut
in half, and fractured shinbones and sprained ankles in particular
have ...