The tale of the tree and the teeth: Squamish snowboarder lucky to walk away from nasty crash
Ryan Paterson smashed his mouth, broke his jaw and fractured both arms. But it could have been a lot worse
On a sunny Vancouver day, Ryan Paterson's mouth seems full of treasures, flashing silver every time he speaks or smiles.
Solid bands of metal run the entire length of his top and bottom gum line, placed there by one of the city's top dental surgeons in an effort to persuade all the teeth he smashed in last month to reroot so solid foods might have a chance of re-entering his life.
"This one," he says, pointing to a front incisor that appears slightly adrift from the row, "probably needs a root canal."
In fact, he needs two: the second to save the tooth next door.
And while the procedure is often held up as a benchmark of unpleasantness — in the vein of 'I'd rather have a root canal than do my taxes' or 'I'd rather have a root canal than be sprayed by a skunk' — when you've just escaped catastrophic injury as Paterson did, a couple of root canals are surely a better than, say, never walking again.
"No concussion, no internal injuries, no spinal and no leg injuries," he said. "It's pretty crazy."
Five weeks ago the Squamish snowboarder was shooting videos in the Brandywine backcountry near Whistler with two colleagues.
It was the end of the day and 25 year old was hoping to nail one last trick for the cameras — a Cab 540 (one and half rotations) off a jump the group had built on a steep slope.
I thought, 'Oh, you idiot!'
But in the split second before going airborne, Paterson caught an edge and was thrown sideways, face first into a big Douglas fir.
"The second I hit the tree I thought, 'Oh, you idiot!' " he said. "I could tell my jaw was very broken ... but I wasn't sure what else was wrong."
A lot, as it turns out. His jaw was indeed broken in three different places. Most of his bottom teeth were hanging loose and both arms were fractured. And, there was a lot of blood.
Friend Chris Rasman was first to his side. Ben Webb, who was shooting from below the jump, arrived about a minute later.
"Chris had already had his medical kit out ... and was trying to stop the bleeding," said Webb. "Ryan was sitting in the snow and he was pretty mangled up. His face was pretty bloody, he had teeth dislodged and he was in a lot of pain."
Things went from bad to worse when they learned it was too dark for a helicopter rescue. With the temperature at –20 C and dropping, there was growing urgency to get Paterson medical attention.
Thankfully, that's when things started to go right. Because they had cell service Rasman and Webb were able to call friends who came on snowmobiles.
'My job was to stay calm'
Miraculously, Paterson's back, neck and internal organs didn't seem badly injured. So he walked — with help — up the hill to a snowmobile and logging road that had been groomed by crews to help speed his exit. The ambulance was waiting in the Brandywine parking lot.
"Chris and Ben did such a good job of keeping me warm, making a plan and getting in touch with other people. I knew they had me," said Paterson. "My job was to stay calm because if I started freaking out, that just makes the situation worse."
The ordeal took two hours. But for a little frostbite on his own toes, Webb says they were lucky.
"It was super cold and honestly, I'm so glad were were able to get Ryan out because if we had to spend the night ... I don't think it necessarily ends well."
Five weeks later, Paterson is well on the road to recovery.
His right wrist is still in a cast and there's the matter of that dental work, but at least now that his jaw is no longer wired shut, not everything he eats has to pass through a straw.
He says the list of people who deserve thanks is long. He also says he can't wait to get back riding and filming next season.
What he hasn't yet plans for is viewing the video of his crash. It still too soon.
"Maybe one day we can look at it over beers and laugh. But not right now."