Industry News
U.S. ski racer Mikaela Shiffrin has provided an update on her YouTube channel “Moving Right Along” about her recovery following her crash during the Giant Slalom in Killington, Vermont. The 29-year-old caught an edge on her second run of the Giant Slalom race that sent her flying in a forward roll into the B-nets. During the tumble, the ski racer suffered a puncture to her abdomen from either her ski pole or possibly the gate pole that snapped in half.
The short documentary shows the athlete resuming strength training in the hope of gradually healing the injury and returning to skiing soon. But on Thursday, December 12, Shiffrin had to undergo additional surgery to drain the cavity, which had filled with fluid and become infected, resulting in an immune response with fever and chills for the skier.
During the surgery on December 12, a Jackson-Pratt (JP) drain was put in, which will remove further bleeding from the wound via a thin tube. The advantage of a JP drain is that doctors can judge from the color of the fluid in the tube whether the blood is old or fresh and how the wound is healing. The tube can be seen at several points during the video.
In the aftermath of the unexpected surgery, Shiffrin has been forced to take her recovery a bit slower and rest up to help the healing process. The documentary makes it evident how much the energetic athlete struggles with the unexpected rest: “Just a little bit of time to think, I guess, and it kind of delays things,” Shiffrin says, struggling to hold back her tears about the temporary setback.
“It’s hard to put a timeline, and I feel like people want to know. But it’s hard to know when or if I’ll be back this season,” Shiffrin adds with a hard swallow and a sigh. She admits it has been bothering her a lot to know now and it is easy to see why someone as energetic and at the peak of her game is finding it hard to adjust to the unknown.
