My Most Recent Near Death Experience

Every year about this time we have a work party and we go snowmobiling at Daniels Summit. The last two years we have gone a little bit earlier and there has been a lot of fresh snow. This year it hadn't snowed for a while and a lot of the snow was packed. The last two years all I really wanted to do was get the sled off of the ground. This year the conditions made it possible to get off of the ground easily. I went a little bit down the trail from the lodge with one of my buddies, Tim, and I saw this perfect jump. It looked like a table that I would jump on my snowboard. I thought that it was perfect. I took a run at it. Onlookers later told me that they thought that I was about 6 feet in the air and traveled about 20 feet. The landing was nearly perfect. I did hit my lip on the rubber bar that goes across the top of the handle bars. In retrospect that should have been foreshadowing of what was to come. By this time most of our enormous group was nearby on the trail. My friend Tim also hit the jump and it was awesome. It was everything that I had always wanted from snowmobiling. I went around to do it again. I had been rather cautious that first time because I didn't really know what to expect. The second time I threw caution to the wind. As I flew through the air the nose dipped down. By the time I hit the ground the sled was nearly vertical. The nose went into the ground and the sled fell forward and to the right, ending up upside down. I, of course, came off of the sled. My head was the first thing to contact the snow. I had scratches on my neck from my helmet getting pressed between my head and shoulder. My helmet was not fastened properly and it flew off after I hit the ground. I got up quickly. I wasn't in a lot of pain. I have hit my head a lot harder than that before. Both nostrils started bleeding and for a short time I thought that I may have done some permanent damage to my neck. A little over a week later I am back to normal with no permanent damage. I feel extremely lucky. I didn't fully understand the potential risks associated with snowmobiling. Due to my propensity to act and then think, I am sure it won't be the last time something like this happens.