HUNTSVILLE, Utah — Around noon on Sunday, Lori Buck’s son, Aza Topik, called her from Snowbasin.
“He said, 'Mom, mom, come to Basin, come to Basin,'" she said. "'I can't move my legs. I can't feel my feet. I fell.'”
Lori immediately drove to the mountain and found out what happened as her son was being rushed to the hospital.
“He fell face first," she said. "His front edge of the snowboard caught in the snow and he face-planted, scorpioned and broke his neck and severely damaged his spinal cord.”
Doctors gave Aza a 5 percent chance of ever walking again The teen faces months of physical therapy and tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills, said Gabby Topik, his sister.
“Aza just recently switched jobs," she said. "He's 18, and he doesn't have insurance from now until the first of January. So it's just a tough time.”
It wasn't Aza’s first time on a board or on Snowbasin's slopes; he started learning how to ride a few years ago and made Snowbasin his home mountain, said Lori.
“That's kind of what's giving me hope in that he will walk again because he has such a passion for being active and what he can do with his body," she said. "It's truly a gift.”
Catastrophic injuries like Aza’s always uptick come ski season, said Dr. Wing Provine, Senior Medical Director over Emergency Medicine with Intermountain Healthcare.
“It’s, I would say 90 percent of the patients we see are patients who are very experienced skiers," he said. "It's very rare that we see the inexperienced, new person, rookie, who's out there that gets injured.”
Jackson Topik discovered his little brother was not wearing a helmet Sunday.
“We go skiing a lot together," he said. "I tend to wear one every time, but just kind of the style, a lot of his friends don't really wear helmets."
Although a helmet might not have saved Aza’s spine, his family wants everyone to be safe on the slopes this season.
Gabby started a GoFundMe to raise money for Aza's medical bills and recovery.
