UPDATE: Junior Caden Clark will be returning to Lincoln on Tuesday, Jan. 20, but freshman Derek Busser will go through elbow surgery before he returns to school.

Two freshmen and one junior have faced injuries while snowboarding due to unforgiving and icy conditions at practice at Mt. Hood Meadows.

After the first run of the night on Jan. 14, freshman Derrick Busser fell into a deep bowl of snow. As he held out his hands to sustain his fall, his right arm slipped and collided hard with the ice, fracturing his radius and possibly ending his season. Later that night, junior Caden Clark slipped when he was on the takeoff of a jump, which led to him landing on his back, slamming his head on the ground and leaving him with a grade 1 concussion. Immediately following the fall, freshman Arnaud D’Azemar fell on his back and bruised his tailbone.

Each of them were rushed to the Providence mountain emergency room at Meadows, ending their nights early. D’Azemar missed only one day of school, but Busser and Clark said that they plan on returning to school after five days of rest.

Coach Jesse Nicola also injured himself before the team’s first competition on Jan. 10. He misplaced a metal screw from his collarbone’s steel plate. There isn’t much explanation as of how it happened, since no one was riding with him at the time, but he said that he slipped on an ice patch, which led to him falling on his shoulder. He has currently gone through surgery to put the screw back in place.

Sophomore Josh Delzell said that such injuries should not come as an alarm to any parents or other students. “Snowboarding, by nature, is a dangerous sport and I don’t think that these injuries should be pinned on any of the coaches,” Delzell said. “Riders should know their limits and be able to avoid a certian obstacle if they are uncomfortable with it.”