The accident on the Rossa Grawand track n.1 The dynamics: no external intervention. The expert: safety for trauma is poor
Matilde Lorenzi, the promising young Italian skier who yesterday fell during training on the Val Senales glacier in Alto Adige, has died. The news was announced in a post from the Ministry of Defense on social networks. Matilde Lorenzi’s condition was “unchanged critical” until the night. The 19-year-old Piedmontese skier fell yesterday 28 October on the red Grawand slope nr.1 on the Val Senales glacier. The accident led to her being admitted to intensive care and with a reserved prognosis at the San Maurizio hospital in Bolzano. He had craniofacial trauma.
The accident
According to an initial reconstruction, the skier from the Italian Army Sports Group was going down the slope without poles or doors. Her skis suddenly split apart and she lost one of them. She hit her face on the track surface and was thrown over the hardcourt. The Silandro carabinieri reconstructed that she did everything alone: no other skier deviated from her trajectory. Her coach was following her at that moment. «The Defense and Minister Guido Crosetto express their deepest condolences and embrace the family and colleagues of Corporal Matilde Lorenzi, Army athlete and promising Italian skier, who tragically passed away following a very serious accident occurred during a training session”, writes the ministry.
«Invariably critical conditions»
Lorenzi, who would have turned 20 in November, won the Italian overall and youth title in Super-G in Sarentino in March. In January he reached sixth place in the downhill and eighth in the super-G at the junior world championships in Chatel in France. He was training for the season that had just begun. It was ascertained that the safety parameters on the track and on the ski lift were respected, just as the protections along the track were placed correctly.
Any liability of the managers of the ski lift was therefore also excluded. Matilde has a sister, Lucrezia, also a skier. He should have been working on the Giant in Sweden but the too much heat had convinced the technical staff to prefer fast tests and, therefore, Val Senales. Its slopes extend from the Grawand mountain station at 3,212 meters to the chairlift mountain stations up to the Maso Corto valley station at over 2,000 meters.
The helmet and the fall
Bruno Andrea Pesucci, head of maxillofacial surgery at San Camillo in Rome and professor at Sapienza and Unicamillus University, explains today to Republic that «the helmet evidently did not provide sufficient protection. And unfortunately there are no effective devices in speed sports other than full-face motorcycle helmets.” Regarding surgery for trauma, the doctor explains: «The important thing is always to allow a short time to pass between the trauma and transport to hospital. In the case of complex traumas, intervention and recovery times are significantly longer.”
Also because «craniofacial trauma also occurs when the head is directly protected by a helmet, but the impact on the face is so violent that it also affects the cranial region, including the brain. We will never reach full safety in skiing. Athletes need to have one hundred percent vision at all times. The helmet itself must avoid head trauma: there are no better devices.”
No safety for trauma
Pesucci explains that «for traumas there are no ways to stay safe. It’s impossible to tell a professional skier to go slowly or a rugby player to avoid the melee. The rules must be changed. In boxing, the materials and rules have changed, with boxers finally counted even on their feet.” And it is difficult to avoid accidents like Lorenzi’s: «In all disciplines we have reached such speeds that prevention is simply impossible. In sport, performance is a necessity that often comes at the expense of safety. A problem that is to some extent manageable but unavoidable.” In the future, improving systems may be introduced: «Sometimes technology amazes us. I think of the Formula 1 Halo-cage, apparently annoying but actually very comfortable”
