Getting back on the board after a major injury
About 1.5 years ago, I had a major accident (not snowboard related), which ended up in 5 skull fractures, a shattered eye socket now held together with a titanium net and screws, sinus reconstruction, broken neck, two subdermal hematomas a traumatic brain injury and some more.
Luckily, I lost about 2 days of memory, so I can't remember what happened at all, but got the event retold to me afterwards, and it was all because of my own careless stupidity.
However, there is still this fear in me, and I feel this psychological hurdle which kind of even stops me from getting on a bike.
The time has come now where I am healed enough to get back on the board, and I'm worried that the accident will affect my riding and fear level.
I have snowboarded my entire life and I mostly do tree runs, even these tight pine forests (not unfamiliar with hitting trees at high speed), other types of off piste, and I am planning on buying a splitboard (should've done that years ago). Groomers I do on bad snow days, when I'm not with my equally crazy friends to go on some crazy back country ice/rock adventure, or when with my girlfriends family in some resort, playing around side hits, or carving.
I don't doubt that there are people in this group that have faced similar, if not worse challenges. So my question is, how do you get over that psychological hurdle? How do you go back to your normal riding, putting trust in your helmet and your skills to go back to the normal risk taking comfortably?
And for the love of @/!$#! always wear a helmet!
Posted Mar 3, 2026, 11:30 AM UTC