As a true freeskiing pioneer, Sarah Burke's competition and lobbying has affected the lives of countless skiers, spectators, and athletes. Over the course of her lifetime, Sarah Burke became a
six-time X Game gold medalist, a prominent professional ski athlete, a beloved wife, and a world-wide ambassador of professional and non-professional female athletes. Sarah Burke was quite possibly the most influential and outstanding female skier that has ever lived.
After lobbying for and earning the rights to compete in events such as the X Games and other skiing events on an equal level with men, Sarah Burke and other women gained the opportunity to compete in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games that are scheduled to take place in Sochi, Russia. Burke was a shoe-in for Canadian representation in the new super-pipe freeskiing events and was likely already starting to prepare for the coming Winter Games. Not only was she an automatic qualifier, Sarah Burke was favored to win the entire competition and expected to receive gold-medal Olympic standing.
While training and preparing for upcoming competitions in Park City, Utah, Burke incurred life-threatening injuries from a "freak accident" skiing in the Eagle Superpipe. Shockingly, Sarah had performed the tragedy-sparking trick dozens of times before with near perfection and had never suffered severe injury from it. The trick, a flat spin 540 (link one, link two), is a relatively simple feat for an athlete of Burke's caliber. Having performed it well, it was reported that Burke came down from the air and landed on her feet, but proceeded to "bounce onto her head," incurring injury, after the trick had already been completed.
Burke suffered cardiac arrest at the time of the accident, depriving her brain of oxygen which caused severe and irreversible brain damage that led her into a nine-day comatose. After being in critical condition for over a week, Sarah died the morning of January 19th, 2012. All from a freak skiing accident.
She never had the chance to see and participate in what she had worked so hard for in recent years - Olympic level competition - and will not have the opportunity to capitalize on the product of her lobbying and labor by achieving gold-medal standing.
Now, her family and husband are left without Sarah and with an additional $550,000 in hospital bills. A fund-raising effort has been garnered to support such expenses.
This is one very vivid example that makes me realize how short life really is. Sarah Burke; a young, beautiful, top-of-the-line professional athlete, has just died at the age of 29 years old. A mere handful of years older than myself; and her life is now over. And what did it amount to? Certainly a great deal of fame, fortune, fun, and attention - But to what end? As a great admirer and an individual pursuing a professional career in snowsports, by no means will I ever minimize Sarah's life and death! However, it does sober me even more to the truth and relevance of James 4:
"Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." (James 4:13-14 ESV)
Read more about Sarah Burke, her accident, and the tragedy of her death:
(^sources for this Cranial Collision article^)
Very Well written. And an excellent reminder of the brevity of life and how we might want to make our 'dash' count for God and eternity.
But for the grace of God, there go I...
Great points, AJ. This is such a tragedy, and really makes you question what our goal is in life.