On the frontline: Chris Chatt

When a simple street rail mission, in the midst of last winter, went wrong, Chris Chatt landed up with his leg both sides of a handrail. We caught up with Chris last summer to find out exactly what happened and how you recover from a broken femur.

DCMT: So Chris, the season didn’t go quite as planned last year?
CC: Ha-ha, it was fucking shit. I think I over prepared for last season. First off, I was burrowing boards and I snapped some of them. Then, when the winter finally started picking up, and we had a good dump, and started going out hitting loads of rails, and I’d done well in a rail competition in Munich, we went to shoot some street rails in Mittenweld, Germany – the training rail, of all places – and I broke my leg. I broke my left femur.

DCMT: That sounds bad, the femur's a pretty important bone isn't it?
CC: They say it's the hardest bone in your body to break.

DCMT: What actually happened?
CC: Basically that session I was super pumped because it was the first time I'd ever hit these rails – they've been the Hungerpain training rails for years. It's a 15- or 18-stair down rail, single-bar. The rail is on one side and you can have kickers on both sides. There's a big hill before it you can drop in from, across a car park.
Before that rail, though, is a 28-stair down rail. The idea was us going there to do both rails in a row – which would be a sick line.

We got there and put loads of snow across the car park to make the hit between both rails.
I started warming up on the smaller rail. I did a bunch of 5050s before going for a frontboard. As I was coming up to the rail I saw Ollie Plumley was going to walk up the stairs, I caught him out the corner of my eye, and then he stopped and walked back. But as I looked back at the rail, I was going way too slow so just trailed off the kicker and rode the stairs out – I've done it a million times – just putting your hands out to the rail and ride out and down. It's usually a good confidence thing to just ride the stairs out first.

But there were four uprights holding the rail up.  As I was going down I hit the nose of my board on the second post which flipped me over, so I was looking down at the rail, and then I saw my leg hit into the third upright, and just bend! I thought it had hit at the knee – when you slam like that everything seems to go in slow motion – as I was flipping over I was like, ‘Oh my God, my knee, that is impossible to fix.’

I ended up on the stairs at a weird angle, and started screaming. Everyone came rushing over, and as they did, I shunted myself forward and unclipped my bindings – usually when I've been hurt in the past you just unclip and stand up straight away, trying to kind of not admit that you are hurt. So I shunted forward, unclipped my bindings, lay back and yelled to Gary Greenshields, ‘My leg is fucking broken, it's fucking broken!’ I was swearing like you would not believe.

It was this weird feeling, like when you get a dead leg and there is nothing there. Gary was like, ‘Alright mate, calm down.’

I think he said something like, ‘What makes you think your leg's broken?’ And I was like, ‘It's fucking killing!’ I remember I tried to lift it up, my left leg, and I just saw this bit at the top of my pants lift up and nothing else in my leg moved. Gary's face just went white and I shit myself; that's when everyone who'd seen that just started freaking out – which made it worse for me.

Gary was holding my hand, saying, ‘Don't worry mate, be cool, it won't be long until someone comes.’ But I could hear everyone else going, ‘What are we gonna do?’

At that point I was panicking: I thought I was gonna die or something. You know, it's 10.30pm, on a Sunday night, we're at the top of this mountain in the middle of nowhere, it's snowing down: I thought I was fucked. I put my hands over my ears and just tried to breathe really deeply; to slow my breathing down, to clam down in my head. I couldn't hear anything. I just thought, ‘You've fucked it now.’

I tried to think of things like: I'd be able to spend more time playing guitar, anything to be positive, just trying not to think that I wasn't gonna get picked up.

Everyone put their coats over me, and Gary was holding my hand, and they were all telling me it would be alright.

I don't think I was crying; I was in that much pain. All I wanted in snowboarding was to go through it without being hurt, just to be riding with my friends, I don't even have to be doing the best tricks, that's all I wanted to do.

The ambulance pulled up, and I was shaking. They came to look at me, and were like, 'right'.

They pulled this stretcher out and, where I was at this really weird angle on the steps, it took four goes to get me onto it. I was screaming as they tried to move me, but they got me into the back of the ambulance but then couldn't give me any morphine until another doctor turned up 15 minutes later to authorise it.

He literally just poked his head in the door and nodded. But before they could do that they had to get my boots and pants and thermals off – basically get me bollock naked. I'm screaming this whole time to cut the boots off but they wouldn't so Gary tried to show them the best way to take off snowboard boots. They pulled my boots off and that was... you know… your leg is broke and someone is pulling it, and like everyone could hear me outside…

We got the boot off and I was like, ‘Cut the snowboard pants off’, but they didn't: they pulled them off as well.

We finally got to my thermals and Vans boxer shorts, which to be honest I thought they could pull off, but no, they cut them off!

So I'm in there naked, and this is when they put the morphine in, after that worst bit. I remember Gary had gone out; James Carr had stayed in the ambulance with me; the other ambulance guy was just looking at me; we're bouncing around, my eyes started to go heavy, it felt like I'd had, you know, 12 pints of Guiness: it felt wicked!

The stretcher was really comfortable, it had this inflatable thing in and  I started offering to get the ambulance guys all the beer they wanted, or anything – I was so grateful I even offered to build them a house. They were just looking, laughing.

Then it turned black and the next thing I know I was being wheeled through the hospital after an X-ray. I guess I was in and out of consciousness.

I looked over from the bed and I could see everyone in the waiting room – it was 12.30am by that point – and I'm going, ‘The lads are here, fucking Iron Maaaiiiden man!’ and then I asked, ‘Am I gonna be able to wear tight jeans with a broken leg?’ and everyone started laughing. Then I got wheeled off for my operation, hollering ‘Iron Maiden’ all the way down the halls.

DCMT: What operation do they do for that injury?
CC: You can see in the X-Ray the bone snapped, and over-lapped where I shunted forward to undo my bindings, so they pulled it straight and put a Titanium rod all the way through my femur and screwed it above the knee and below the hip.

DCMT: What is the recovery?
CC: When I was in hospital in Germany the doctor said to me that that has to stay in for one year, then it gets taken out and that's when you can go back to professional snowboarding or whatever.
At home I saw the NHS people for my one-month-on X-ray and my three-month-on X-ray, and they said that they leave the rods in in this country. I told them I wanted it out and they said I'd have to wait 18 months before I get it out. In those two NHS visits I saw two different doctors who both said completely different things – none of which was the same as what the team of German doctors had said!

You can't ride with the rod in. If the leg breaks again with the rod in then it's an absolute nightmare to have it out, or worse: it could shatter my knee or hip. But that means, if it has to be the way it's done in England, from breaking my leg in February 2009, I won't be back to full fitness until February 2011.

DCMT: When you come back to snowboarding will you look to ride street rails?
CC: I tell you what I'm looking forward to, is just going to the snow dome – every night if possible – setting up a gas pipe or down rail and just going through all the tricks again, right from the beginning. Just trying to learn as many as I can. That's what we used to do before and they were some of the best days; all the boys just sessioning.

As soon as I'm able to ride properly again I'll do a season for sure. I'll ride park rails and park jumps and pistes and powder but I'm not sure how quickly I'll go to street rails to shoot photos – particularly not open street rails where you can go underneath. The amount of times I've gone underneath and escaped and not even thought about it…

DCMT: Are you training the leg to get better?
CC: Since I got out of hospital there was bugger all movement in my leg and it was really sensitive so I just did a load of Swiss ball work that the physio told me to do. Gradually I was able to do exercises with elastic bands and an exercise bike. And now, three months on, I cycle 25km every day on the hardest resistance; do a load of elastic band stuff; and I still go to physio every week where they give me new stretches and exercises. I'm allowed to run on it but it's so painful – apparently that'll get better.

DCMT: So how are you filling your time now?
CC: I bought a new guitar,  I play golf pretty much every day – look out for me on the PGA tour next year! I'm building a BMX from original 80's parts – I just scour eBay – and I hang with my girlfriend. I'll be starting work in a snow and skate shop probably pretty soon. Hopefully I'll go on some nice holidays…

DCMT: How are you feeling about the whole thing?
CC: I would trade it all not to be injured.