Most common way to get hurt...

I have been hearing of lots of people getting hurt ex. crushing ankles, breaking legs. How do you get hurt on a wakeboard? I shatterd my femur racing motocross a while back and had to get it screwed and plated back together. But that was going 30 and falling on the ground.

Tantrums are hard on the knees. Spins can bust your eardrums. Sliders can break what ever hits them.

Well, in wakeboarding, you're going 21-26 mph or so as a base speed. Any lateral motion adds to that velocity vector so when you're cutting at the wake, you're going faster. Now consider the surface area of a wakeboard. Hitting the water with all that surface area makes it pretty much the same as landing on the ground.

I think broken legs are fairly rare in wakeboarding. I tend to attribute the broken lower leg bones, at least in part, to the stiffer bindings of today but who knows? I know that your lower leg bones, under axial pressure, require surprisingly little lateral pressure to break.

Torn ligaments are much more common. Basically, imagine jumping off your roof and not knowing what the ground will look like (angled, flat, etc.) or exactly how high you are and when you are going to hit. That's kind of like a bad crash on a wakeboard. You can see how you could screw up ankles and knees that way.

Tantrums hurt the ankles when you come up short. Anything can happen on crashes, it just depends how you fall. The thing I am afraid of is one foot coming out of a binding causing the leg to twist, and snap. I've heard about that a couple times. That's why I like my bindings really tight. I figure if I hit hard enough for one to come out, most likely they both will. It's an 'extreme sport' because the risk of injury is high relative to other sports. But that's what we live for I guess.

Salmon did a nice job of explaining the impact forces and the general dangers. To emphasize and add one more point, if the boat is going 24mph and you take a hard cut, your body and board might easily wind up doing twice that. I'm sure someone has calculated it. And if you are flipping or spinning then you can tack on some additional rotational force, as well. The thing is, when you hit the water, it catches you and you stop, often almost instantly. In many other high speed "extreme" sports, you slide, roll or tumble to a stop. Sure, you can get messed up pretty badly in the process, in addition to impact forces, and it happens all the time. But in wakeboarding, you might tend to stop even more quickly, maybe going from 40-50mph (or more?) to zero in a second or less, so the sudden twisting, ripping or "pulling you apart" forces may be greater, even if the "impact" forces are slightly less than if you had hit concrete, dirt or ice.

Adam, one of my worst early wake injuries resulted from the scenario you described. Trying to pull in a raley with one foot in and one foot out, thinking about what might be about to happen, is not a fun feeling. I now share your theory of tight bindings!

One foot came out on lift off? OUCH!

That feeling is the worst (thinking about what is going to happen). And time seems to go soooo slooowwww. It's amazing how many scenarios can run through your head in just the couple seconds it takes to hit the water.

the scariest for me is coming in too late for a doubleup and getting over the front on takeoff. I did this the other day and got booted. as I floated off axis I did not abandon the rope as that would send me flaying onto my head. Rather I held on for dear life and tried to pull my legs and board me. A half successful attempt but I should've vouched for option one. The board caught and slapped me face, shoulder, side against the water. when I emerged it felt like I had just taken a blow to the face and was seeing stars like crazy. Pretend you just got ran up on at a bar and cold clocked in the face by a huge redneck. the wind was knocked out of me and I lay in the water all hazy, gasping for air, rather wheezing, without a doubt in my mind I had broken at least 1 rib. That is my greatest fear is getting knocked out and lying face down in the water. wear your vest and always remember Cory Kraut

What Happened to Cory Kraut?

He just never surfaced after crashing. I don't believe he was wearing a vest at the time either.

http://www.wakeworld.com/Articles/CoreyKraut.asp

http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/messages/65919/169305.html

I tore my acl casing the wake (boat wasn't up to speed) and landing straight legged.

Thats sad about both of them. What is up with non us coast guard vests? BTW srry if this thread is getting ppl angry.

Letting up on cuts going to the wake can cause injuries. I was doing a scarecrow and i let up for a half a second, i didnt go big enough and i tore my acl. Luckily i only had to do rehab not surgery.

Painful crashes can happen even if you don't clear the wake, I've had the same thing that Ringo described happen to me numerous times on a messed up wake jump. With the potential pain of even the smallest of crashes, it's easy to see how you can hurt yourself. Sometimes I wonder if it's possible to break your neck on a bad face plant...

Smashing your knee into your chin, nose, face or forehead on a hard landing. That's another good way to get messed up on a wakeboard. Done that one a couple times - broken jaw in two places the first time, got off easier the second time with only 6 broken teeth.

Good god. I thought wakeboarding was safer than motocross.