News of Caileigh Koppang’s crash comes as a spinal surgeon is raising the alarm about the high number of spinal cord injuries in B.C. mountain bike riding
A 15-year-old B.C. girl remains in a partial coma with head and back injuries, facing a long rehabilitation, as a local back surgeon is raising concerns about the increasing number of crippling injuries in the sport of mountain biking.
When first posted after her Oct. 17 crash, the webpage said, “She is in a coma and fighting for her life” in B.C. Children’s Hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit.
In an update last week, her parents said, “She is slowly coming out of her coma and is now semi-conscious” and that she had had surgery to insert a breathing tube in her trachea and that her spinal cord wasn’t damaged.
They were “holding on to hope and waiting for her to wake up,” her mom and dad said in the post.
Koppang is an experienced rider with four top-three finishes in downhill mountain biking’s B.C. Cups organized by Cycling B.C., according to Canadian Cycling Magazine’s website.
“There is no denying this girl is a phenom,” the magazine said in an article about her crash.
She has two sponsors and among her riding partners are Norco’s Kirk McDowall and Gracey Hemstreet, it said.
Koppang’s Instagram feed shows her in a video sailing three metres over a small ravine, and in another one, a rider behind her films her executing two jumps built in the woods for what he said was her first time on that run, and hoots his congratulations at the finish.
That’s about three or four bikers a year. Author Dr. Brian Kwon found another 21 mountain bikers suffered spinal cord injuries in the two years since, about 10 or 11 a year — about seven times as many as skiers and snowboarders.
The sport needs to expand risk warnings for riders and for health workers, governments, mountain bike associations and bike parks and hills to improve safety in the sport, he said.
The Mountain Bike Tourism Association said more could be done to improve messaging about risk.
B.C.’s Environment Ministry said it is updating the difficulty rating system for bike trails, much of it on provincial land.
Half of the 58 patients in Kwon’s study, published recently in the medical journal Neurotrauma Reports, were left without use of their legs or arms or both, and the rest were left with only some motor function. All injuries were life-altering, he said.
All but four bikers in the study were male and the average age was about 35, more than twice as old as Koppang.
Questions about safety and the oversight of downhill mountain bike racing were raised last year after a teen died during a B.C. Cup race run by Cycling B.C. at Big White when he left the course on a sharp corner and crashed into a creek bed.
Cycling B.C. did not comment on the safety issue at the time, and the ski resort has been awaiting the B.C. Coroner’s investigation.
It is not known how or where Koppang crashed last month. In an interview in August with bikemag.com, she said what she loved about mountain biking was the sense of freedom and adventure, the challenge of navigating tough trails, and the thrill of speed.
She said she was grateful to a sponsor for providing her with a “super-fast prototype downhill bike” and her biggest achievement was “hitting huge drops and racing gnarly downhill tracks I never thought I’d be able to do.”
The article said she missed the Crankworx meet at Whistler earlier this summer while recovering from a “massive knock at Kicking Horse” before that.
On the GoFundMe page, her parents said, “Caileigh is our little fighter and we are certain that brighter days are ahead. She continues to make us so proud with her resilience and the strength she’s shown every step of the way.”
They said they were “deeply grateful for the overwhelming support” from people, but they declined further comment.
The GoFundMe goal is $75,000 and was at about $67,000 midday on Monday.
— with file by Lori Culbert