Be Cautious about Safety Accident of Ski and Snowboard

-More ski accidents for teenagers and More snowboard accidents for 20s-

   As weather gets colder, the number of consumers who have visited ski resorts to enjoy winter sports increases. However, consumers need to be cautious about safety issues as the cases of ski and snowboard accidents mount up.

   As the Korea Consumer Agency(www.kca.go.kr) analyzed the 1,211 cases of injury information on ski resorts collected by Consumer Injury Surveillance System(CISS) every season since 2010, 1,178 cases** of safety accidents happened in a slope.

* From '13 November to '14 April, Ex) ‘10-’11 season : ’10.11.∼‘11.04.

** Ski 620, Snowboard 451, Others(unconfirmed) 107

  When analyzing 1,178 cases of accident types happened in the slope, accidents related to the sliding or falling accounts for 80.5% (948), followed by collision with others 8.7%(103), accidents caused by ski equipment 5.8%(68), and collision with facility including fence？safety net, etc. 4.7%(55).

    By age group, mostly 20s and 30s who used ski resorts had injured, 37.4%(440) and 22.7%(267) respectively, and 20.0%(236) for 10s. From 20s to 30s had more snowboard accidents, but 10s experienced more ski accidents.

   When people ski, major injured body parts are knee·foot·leg 31.8%(197), followed by arm·shoulder 24.5%(152) and head 23.2%(144). On the other hand, during snowboarding, people are injured, such as arm·shoulder 36.6%(165), head 20.8%(94), and hand·wrist 14.0%(63). In case of ski, if people are a lack of skill that includes stopping, there is a high possibility to get injured, especially, knee, foot, and leg, but in case of snowboard, when people fall down, they place their hands on the ground, leading arm and shoulder injuries.

   If you see details of injuries, the facture of part of body accounts for 37.4%(232) for ski and 40.8%(184) for snowboard, respectively. Especially, occurrence rates of cerebral concussion and cerebral hemorrhagic are higher for snowboard(9.1%, 41) than for ski(4.5%, 28).

  Furthermore, as the KCA analyzed consumer satisfaction levels of six ski resorts to offer useful information to consumers, then it appeared that there were no big difference among 'High1', 'Yongpyong', and 'Vivaldi park' in terms of overall satisfaction.

   The High1 received a top ranking for consumer satisfaction in ‘Staff service’, ‘Fare’, ‘Experience of service’, and ‘Transportation’, and the Yongpyong received the highest scores in satisfaction level towards 'Facility operation', and 'Popularity'.

  The KCA recommended that people should ▲wear protection equipment including a safety helmet, ▲become familiar with basic movement, and then use an appropriate slope, and ▲ not stop in the middle of the slope.