Helen Schettini's Black Eye Bail

Nov 6, 2012

The 2013 Edition of Snowboard Canada Women's Annual is now available on newsstands, so hopefully you have had a chance to check out Helen Schettini's feature interview, Only The Strong Survive. After taking a look at her epic shiner in the portrait photos we recieved to accompany her interview it only made sense to track down the footage of the insane bail that is responsible for this look that Helen rocked for a few weeks last season. Natalie Langmann kindly sent over Helen's recap of this faithful day, so check out the story and video below...

A Tale of One Black Eye

Author: Helen Schettini as told to Natalie Langmann

That day nothing went right. It was mid January, and it was frigidly cold, but it was a beautiful day, one of the first sunny good days, and it just snowed a bunch, so Mikee Pederson and I met at 6:30 at the Seagrams’ parking lot. Since our filmer showed up late, Mikee and I jumped ahead because we wanted to get to this morning zone before the rest of the crews did, so we could get everything set up and just sort of claim it. We raced up there, got the stuff sorted out, patted it down and just waited, and our filmer never showed up (turns out he had a busted sled).

         Andrew Burns was nice enough to film us, so Mikee and I started hitting our features a couple times. Nothing really worked out. I was almost over mine. I was like, “Oh well, I will just go again,” and so I go, and I landed in the uphill of my old bomb hole and smashed my face with my knee. I was kind of disorientated, but I didn’t blackout. Mikee started losing his mind, so obviously, I was freaking out too because I couldn’t see what it looked like, and it was all bloody. It was only 10:30 am, and I didn’t want anyone to come back with me. Even though Seagrams isn’t that far, it’s still far, and, well, you shouldn’t be sledding on your own; it’s just not smart. Mikee was saying he would come with me, but I didn’t want him to waste his day, so I kind of just hung out for a few hours. Besides it was a nice, sunny, mellow day; why not? But by 1:30, I was like, “OK, I should really go down; I might need stitches. This is my face; I should sort this out.”

         I convinced them that I am good to go, which is totally my fault. About half way down the trail my belt blows in my sled. I had recently given my spare one to Paul (Watt), our other filmer, so I hadn’t bought a new one or he hadn’t given me one yet, and I had no spare. At that point, I had a blown belt, my eye was bleeding, and it was 1:30, 2pm. The next person came at 4pm, so I’ve been sitting there for two hours, just bleeding. I just felt like crying. Thankfully, these nice slednecks came along and put one of their spare belts in my sled, and I rode out to the hospital. At that point my knee had ballooned out. I was more worried about my knee because by the end I could barely walk, but it turned out totally fine – I just sprained it. I got home from the hospital at 9:30pm. That was a long day...but in the end I got some good pictures.

Return to previous page