Snowboarding in whistler.
7cm slice turned into a 40 staple operation. Severed artery, nerves, ligaments and all tendons that make your foot and toes move.
4hr ambulance to vancouver on black ice and 7 hrs of microsurgery to bind it back together. Travel insurance started the next day. 
15k later and 20hrs on a plane home. There goes my year of working on the slopes. Not ideal.
Told me if it happened in the US would have been 60k plus!
Anyone else had a good one?
Eeeuoo! tripple bummer - job, cash and you can't even kite or windsurf.
I hope your luck has changed and the foot recovers properly.
Look at Schumacher.
30 days in coma!!!
Still the helmet is life saver - I use both in snow and water sports!
Rugby 10 years ago on the full time whistle - 100%rupture of Patella tendon. Long recovery and took 4 years before I could kneel down without feeling like my patella (knee cap) was somewhere it shouldn't be. Here's a photo of the initial op where the orthopaedic surgeon wired the knee cap to my tibia so the tendon had some chance of repairing itself - you can see the wires top and bottom before he twisted them together like fencing wire to bring the patella back down from the middle of my thigh.. The removal of the wire 6 months later was worse than the initial op too with respect to pain.
Warning: graphic photo below (no sharks were harmed in the making of this)
Broken ankle in the 4th quarter of my mixed netball grandfinal about 2 years ago. We were down with 7-8minutes left so i stupidly played on in pain.
We won by 3
I was back playing within 6 weeks, it healed but has never really been the same since.
So many ankle and knee injuries on the netball court
30% crush fracture of L2 vertebrae from car Vs bicycle (I was in the wrong). 10 weeks in a pubes to neck body brace (no surgery) spending 22hrs/day flat on my back with no pillow and standing to eat. Literally 13mm shorter than I used to be! 15yrs on and sitting here I can feel it - flares up with basic stuff like sweeping and gardening or too long at the desk. Lucky though - I dodged the wheelchair.
55mm tear of the peronious brevis tendon in my left ankle after mis-landing a back-hand floater on a 2ft dumpy shore break. Let it go for four years (misdiagnosed a chronic sprain that was not rested properly - as I did it in the middle of a house reno, so was up and down ladders etc) and then when I could hear my ankle clicking when walking the dog I had surgery to repair. 3yrs later I am 95% OK, but cannot drive a manual for any length of time and still have pain if walking hills or lots of steps...
Separated my little finger on my left hand by clipping a pole whilst cycling at around 30+ kmh. Broke my hand in 3 places at the base of the finger...so the finger was king of 'floating'... ended up with a hand the size of a half football and once the swelling had gone down ended up in a fibreglass splint for a month. A little tender as the surgeon pushed the finger back in place (no surgery). He used pain as an indicator that he had it back in the right place!
Dislocated both shoulders on separate occasions through surfing, sailing, and snowboarding. Both have been reconstructed.
On the US costs, was 10k for the ambulance ride, drugs, ER, XRay, and Dr for one dislocation in San Fran. Surgery here to fix it is around 11-12k (would have to pull out the recipts) full private and one of the best specialists in the country
I snubbed my toe once when I was young!..... But hey compared to a Shark chewing off half your leg leaving a bone hanging out with torn muscles flapping in the water begging the next one to have a go....WTF........kill all the sharks with teeth.
