Injured American athlete highlights role of alpine skiing medical rescue team

As one of the most spectacular but challenging events among all the Winter Olympic sports, accidents can easily happen in alpine skiing.

Alpine skiing's highest speed per hour can be 140 kilometers with a drop of 900 meters. The proportion of athletes injured is nearly 15 percent. Some of the accidents are even life-threatening.

Nina O'Brien, an American Alpine ski racer, crashed and broke her left tibia and fibula at the end of her second run in the giant slalom event on February 7.

After she underwent successful surgery on February 8, she thanked medical staff on social media.

"I want to say thank you to everyone who's taken care of me, especially those who rushed to me in the finish and my doctors and nurses in Yanqing," she wrote.

The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics alpine skiing medical security team was set up in 2018. It consists of more than 40 doctors who are experienced skiers.

The medical team begun the final preparation for the Olympics on January 4. The training lasts five days per week with four hours' skiing each day.

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Guo Qi, deputy medical officer of the team and a trauma specialist at Beijing Jishuitan Hospital, is one of the first group of ski doctors in China.

"Different from China's doctors, many emergency physicians in the United States or Europe begin to learn ski in their childhoods," Guo said.

The biggest difficulty for ski doctors in China is having a good command of skiing.

According to International Ski Federation (FIS), if an athlete is injured, doctors should appear within four minutes, carrying a medical kit weighing more than 10 kilograms.

"In fact, we may not able to move immediately," Guo said. "We must wait for a safe opportunity, so the time is less than four minutes. It is a big challenge even for ski lovers."

Bai Peng, an anesthetist from Peking University Third Hospital, added: "Medical rescue is our daily work, but it's a totally different environment on alps."

PKU Third Hospital was involved in the medical security work at the 2008 Summer Olympics. The hospital's skiing association was established after Beijing successfully won the bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics in 2016.

"The slope is steep, which is much harder than the advanced slopes in normal ski resorts," Bai said. "Also, the International Ski Federation has a special standard for snow in alpine skiing events, so it's better called 'skating,' which makes it more difficult to carry out medical rescues.

"But we are quite familiar with the track after skiing it countless times."

Bai has a Canadian Ski Instructors' Alliance Level 2 certification and China's ski instructor qualification.

"The basic and the hardest requirement for ski doctors and the rescue team is to stay beside athletes stably," he said.

"Another challenge is the frozen temperature with minus 10 to 20 degrees Celsius. We must take off our gloves, which stops our fingers from working effectively."

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Ski doctors should also be skilled in rope rescue, according to FIS. The medical team are now good at knots, equipment and safety techniques in the vertical rope rescue environment.

"Many team members have suffered during the four years' training and undergone surgery, but everyone knows these are their responsibilities," Guo said.

In addition to dealing with injuries as soon as possible, transporting the injured athletes should be completed within 15 minutes.

There are ambulances and helicopters on call.

"Injured athletes will be moved to the medical station to have a complete evaluation and treatment," Guo said. "Transportation should also be rapid in case of impacting the competition."

There are four medical stations for athletes and two for spectators, eight ambulance teams, two H155 rescue helicopters and two H135 medical helicopters in Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Center in Beijing.

The aviation rescue team has 66 on-duty staffers.