Skier survives broken back in Turnagain Pass

By Brian Stoecker
Turnagain Times Correspondent

Brian Stoecker/Turnagain Times Nora Tobin, modeling her new leopard print “turtle shell” with matching manicure, smiles to Dr. John Lapkass and Najeeby Quinn, while recovering at Providence Hospital. Her surgery days before, fused a burst L-1 vertebra, suffered during a ski-hike on Sunburst Mountain in Turnagain Pass.

Elite athlete and back-country adventurer, Nora Tobin, planned to spend her 40th birthday skiing, before closing the day with family and friends. Though celebrating the day with loved ones, she did so in Providence Hospital, recovering from injuries suffered days before. She’ll continue healing at her Anchorage home through the holidays.
“I’m just living life in slow motion for now,” Tobin said as she optimistically adjusts to her life’s unprecedented leisurely pace.
On Monday, Nov. 5, Tobin and two friends, Rachel James and Aaron Thrasher, climbed Sunburst Mountain to ski the early winter bliss. For a spell it was precisely that, as the trio floated upon a glistening sea of Champaign snow. Choosing her lines, Tobin freely soared off two cornices, landing in clouds of powder. Next she tried to bank a wind-lip from below, sailing above its rim like a half-pipe. She miscalculated.
Instead of banking off the lip, Tobin shot over and beyond it. Suspended above destiny, she saw not the familiar pillows of snow, but only wind scoured ground. Reaching the apex she thought, “I’m way too high. This is not what I...” Boom! The impact burst her L-1 vertebra into 30 useless fragments of serrated bone, collapsing its height by two-thirds.
“Oh my God, that was a major compression,” she immediately realized. In a heartbeat, Tobin doubled her age from a 39 year old, strong as anyone half that, to an 80 year old needing a walker. Thrasher quickly came to Tobin’s aid, followed by James.
“When we got to her, she was already standing,” said Thrasher. “We thought she was all right.”
Tobin tried in vain to walk out, before ascertaining the severity of her injuries and inevitable rescue. She chose wisely, as surgeons later discovered a shard of bone, barely a pinhead away from her spinal cord. “Poacher Dave, Abe, and three guys from Girdwood,” arrived and assisted, then raced ahead to alert authorities. Tobin seemed to know most everyone on the mountain. By day’s end she knew them all.
Ari and Josh arrived from above and remained with Tobin (suffering degrees of hypothermia and shock) and her friends, until the LifeGuard Alaska helicopter departed Sunburst under dimming skies. Thrasher recalls, “She was crackin’ jokes. We were just layin’ in the snow.” She said was in shock and a lot of pain, but playin’ it cool.
Tobin spent two to three hours in the snow, packed in the space blankets and gear of her rescuers. “It was all kind of a blur,” she said, though remembers “tryin’ to peek out” during her impromptu flightseeing tour.
Tobin’s athletic achievements are matched by a hardy few. She finished the 150 mile Alaska Wilderness Classic five times. Only seven women have bested her personal record in the Bird Ridge race. In 1996, she won the Matanuska Peak Challenge (14 miles covering 9000 vertical feet), setting a record that stood for six years. Her Crow Pass Crossing victory in 2000 (3:48:03), is the fastest since 1995. She still holds the (southbound) Turnagain Arm Trail record. And last summer, she became perhaps the first woman to solo the ANWR traverse from Kaktovic to Arctic Village. It’s no wonder she’s an official tester for Patagonia outdoor gear. Tobin is no ordinary woman. Nor was she beyond her element on Sunburst. No more than anyone else.
Tobin ate her birthday cake in pain and on drugs, recovering from her most traumatic event and a six hour surgery two days later. She now has a three-in-one vertebra, complete with two rods, four screws, and the generous contribution of an anonymous cadaver. A transparent hose drains a milky orange fluid from her chest cavity. She wears a body brace instead of Patagonia. But Tobin also wears a smile as she relays her tale for the 214th time.
A fellow runner with whom Tobin had dueled in numerous mountain and trail races—sometimes winning, sometimes not—told her, “Every time I kicked your ass, I did it with a burst L-3 and a double fusion.” They swapped similar stories about similar crashes surgeries and scars, both injuries commencing on remote mountains and snow. As neither suffered incapacitating nerve damage (his being a left leg that no longer sweats), he challenged Tobin to vanquish him on Bird Ridge in 2009, “where you beat me last.” She begged to differ, thinking he beat her. Soon, Tobin and fellow runners, Dr. John Lapkass and Najeeby Quinn (Alaska’s premier road racer) discussed a revised fitness regimen. They did not call it physical therapy, but “training”.
Tobin (a wife, mother of two, and APU psychology instructor) no longer prioritizes racing, due to a plate and four additional screws in her heel, a formerly shattered lower extremity (ambiguously recounted), plantar fasciitis, and other flare-ups during intense training. She favors simpler pleasures like family, friends, and furious fun, thus may not save the date for her Bird Ridge rival.
In her month since leaving the hospital, a brigade of friends and strangers alike have shared stories of similar injuries, and assure a full recovery. When asked about her fitness regimen, Tobin answers, “None. Walking. You gotta’ really recover. I cook.” She has focused on healing. Exercise can wait. After a period of metaphoric house arrest and resulting sensory deprivation, Tobin appreciates even simpler joys. “I’m getting out every day. I went to a movie. All those lights were really neat!”
And her Christmas plans? “Hangin’ low. Maybe walk Potter Hill.”
Tobin’s road to recovery will be tedious and difficult at times, en-route to her inevitable date with a mountain. Come her next birthday, Tobin will survey a remarkable year from a grand vista. Whether or not she knows it now, she will spend her 41st birthday, skiing the slopes of Sunburst. She will ski on rocks if she must. She’ll return, because Tobin is a woman with a spine. Perseverance runs in her blood. Her past is iconic. Her present, heroic. Her future? Legendary.