Talk about fresh pow, bro.
A ski instructor at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in Wyoming is recovering after being impaled by an 18-inch branch while trying to jump between two trees during his first run of the day with his roommate and a visitor on March 1.
“I thought maybe my chinstrap got pushed up into my face, so I tried to brush it off and that’s when I felt the stick,” Natty Hagood, 29, told the Idaho State Journal. “So, I shook left to right and saw the stick moving in my peripherals. I reached out and grabbed it and wiggled it before realizing it was pretty far in there.”
That’s when Hagood, a Washington state native who has been living and working at the resort for three years, knew something was really wrong.
“Holy crap, I just got impaled,” Hagood said. “And then I yelled over to Pete, ‘Hey look, I got a new piercing.’”
The impalement happened so fast that Hagood said he didn’t feel any pain from the branch that gouged one side of his lip and exited the other. He was then told the branch needed to be secured before he rode down the rest of the mountain.
“It was initially about a foot-and-a-half long,” Hagood told the newspaper. “But I braced it against my cheek and snapped it down to about 6 inches. Ski patrol was all like, ‘You’re crazy, man.’”
The pain didn’t kick in until Hagood got to the hospital, where he received numbing shots before the branch was removed.
Hagood — now known on the slopes as “Lipstick” or “Sticky” — eventually left the hospital with 15 stitches in his face and a medical bill totaling nearly $1,500.
“This was totally unplanned and sucks so if y’all would be so kind as to chip in for my medical expenses that would be sooo cool,” Hagood wrote on a GoFundMe page that had raised $1,500. “Guess I should reconsider the lip piercing trend.”
Hagood said he’s now drinking beer through a straw and drools more than ever before, but acknowledged that all the feedback he’s received hasn’t been universally positive.
“I don’t know where they’re from or what their ideologies are, but some people have said that’s the problem with America is that people need to suck it up and pay for their own stuff,” Hagood told the Idaho State Journal. “Some people have been vocal about what I’m doing is distasteful or irresponsible and I’m not taking credit for my own actions.”