{Karlton Bontrager}

Karlton did really well yesterday sitting up in the Lay-Z-Boy recliner. The changed posture and the new requirements to support his breath exhausted him. He did a lot of sleeping. He was also successful with the new ventilator. The doctors are encouraged, and we’ve been told repeatedly that he’s likely to be moving to another ward where he’ll be more independent.

In the meantime, the hospital is gearing up today for its annual mock crisis. We’re told that the police and fire brigades will have the hospital cordoned off, and no one will get in–not even hospital administrators or high fallutin doctors–without a valid hospital ID. We’ll grab a bite to eat before noon, when it all starts, and then hunker down to see what happens. It’ll be interesting to see how they balance intensive care for the actual patients with readiness exercises with mock ones.

The woman who was snowboarding with Karlton on Friday stopped by yesterday. It was so good to talk with her and learn more details of the accident. According to her, the snow conditions were good, they stayed on intermediate-level trails, and he was not taking any undue risks. She snowboards with a helmet, and he’d been asking about it, apparently considering the possibility of buying one for himself. She works on the slopes, and he’d often catch up with her over her lunch break. They’d do a couple of runs together until she had to go back to work.

Friday was her day off, and they’d been snowboarding together all day, having done about 8 runs. It was their last run for the day. Toward the bottom of the run, she would always ski toward the right and he toward the left, their vision of each other blocked by some rocks. But they’d meet at the bottom to catch the lift up again together. This time his friend was in the lead and so she wasn’t able to see Karlton as they came down the hill. When she got to the bottom and he didn’t join her, she assumed that he’d stopped to help somebody out.

Somebody from the ski resort asked her to help do the final sweep for the day, ensuring that everybody was down from the mountain. So she got to go up one more time. She rode the life with someone from the ski patrol, and she noticed that he got a call just as they got off the lift. She found out later that the call was about Karlton. But she’d already begun the final sweep.

Towards the bottom, she noticed a collection of people from the Ski Patrol. She caught up with them and saw it was Karlton who had been hurt. That was really surprising to her, she said. Even though he was a rank beginner this year, he had worked really hard at learning to snowboard well. She’s much more experienced than he, but he would often give her tips about improving her form. She thinks it was just a random accident. . . a rock in the wrong place at the wrong time. For us as parents, it was a relief to learn these details and know that Karlton had been taking adequate safety precautions.

The Ski Patrol must have assumed that Karlton was Japanese. They called in a Japanese interpreter for him. His friend told the Ski Patrol that he was American, but in all the confusion, somehow the word didn’t get to the interpreter. That poor person stayed around for the longest time hoping to be helpful.

This morning Karlton got a beautiful bouquet from Heather, his housemate at Hamilton. It had orchids, Dutch iris, and many more beautiful flowers. Ethan, from the rubgy team at Hamilton, sent flowers yesterday. The florist sent up a card, saying we could”cash it in” for real flowers whenever Karlton was ready. The same happened with the bouquet sent from Zentropy (Jennifer’s work).

Hope all is well with you. We’re doing well. It’s always a delight to hear from everyone.