C.O. sledder tells of crash that left her paralyzed

(Update: Interview with woman paralyzed in sledding accident)

What started as a fun day sledding on the mountain with her family ended with a life-changing injury.

Katie Ciancetta, 48, of Salem was tubing down the steep part of the Santiam Sno-Park on New Year’s Eve. She started down the hill feet-first, but her inner tube slowly started spinning her around.

Speaking to us from her St. Charles Bend hospital bed on Friday, Ciancetta said she could not see where she was going as she sped down the hill. Within seconds, Ciancetta crashed head-first into a frozen tree, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.

“I think I was knocked out a little bit, and then I couldn’t feel my legs,” Ciancetta recalled. “So I knew right away something was very wrong.”

Ciancetta is actually one of two people who were paralyzed after sledding accidents in Central Oregon in the last week. The other incident occurred at the Wanoga Sno-Park sledding hill.

Dr. Mary Condron, a trauma and acute care surgeon at St. Charles Bend, said that while sledding injuries are common in the winter, the current situation is more worrisome.

“I’m concerned that with no fresh snow, and with the temperature fluctuating around the freezing point, the hills are very icy right now, making them a lot faster and a lot more dangerous than what people expect,” Condron said.

Other types of injuries she’s been seeing from sledding include severe concussions and even broken backs.

Condron said it’s never safe to jump on a sled or to go face-first down a hill. And she recommends using sleds you can steer, rather than inner tubes.

Doctors told Ciancetta she has a 10 to 20 percent chance of ever walking again.

“With how badly injured they were when they got here, the odds of a full recovery — it’s less likely that they’ll be able to walk and that they’ll remain paralyzed,” Condron said.

As hard as it’s been for Ciancetta to deal with her injury, she said it’s been even more diffucult for her 8-year-old son, who’s on the autism spectrum.

“It was really hard for him to see me in that position,” Ciancetta said tearfully. “You know, he was really scared. We all were.”

But instead of being mad at the world for what happened, Ciancetta said she wants to power through the challenges.