Jay Reece, pictured with his partner Elysia Gibb, in happier times before his near death snowboarding crash at Whakapapa. Photo / Supplied
Jay Reece, pictured with his partner Elysia Gibb, in happier times before his near death snowboarding crash at Whakapapa. Photo / Supplied
As Jay Reece tumbled down the slopes at Whakapapa - breaking his neck in three places - he called out to his beloved granddad for help.
Reece almost died after a trip to the snow last month with friends that could have ended in tragedy.
As the badly injured 45-year-oldwas stuck in ice on the skifield, he thought of his late grandfather Paul LeLong, who was left with life-changing injuries after breaking his neck.
"I knew I was in trouble and yelled 'Oh no'," he told the Herald on Sunday.
"My granddad broke his neck 14 years ago in a car crash and became a tetraplegic. I thought the same was going to happen to me. I thought this can't happen again so I said to my granddad 'You have to get me out of this hole'.
Reece had travelled to the snow with his partner Elysia Gibb and their friends for five days of snowboarding and skiing.
On August 18, he and a mate Mitchell Avison went up to the skifield's T Bar to traverse the Pinnacles.
The afternoon was "perfect" for snowboarding - clear blue skies and lots of powdery snow.
He described the area they were to cross as "tricky".
Reece had a fantastic first run and decided to have another go. He traversed a little higher but on the second run slid on ice and started spinning out of control.
He ended up halfway down the Pinnacles in an icy hole, anchored only by his snowboard.
Jay Reece in hospital after surgery to repair his broken neck. Photo / Supplied
"As I was falling, I spun headfirst, blanked out a bit and the next thing I was trapped -there was nothing to grip on to," Reece recalled.
"I had blood running from my head and I was spitting blood because I'd bitten both sides of my tongue. It wasn't a good feeling. I yelled help and started punching the ice but I was jammed and wedged in there. I was upside down.
"The pocket of ice saved me, if I'd gone an extra few metres I would have hit the bottom with my head and I'd be dead. I would have literally snapped my neck."
Fortunately for Reece, a skier heard his muffled cries for help and came to his rescue.
The man, a sailor in the Royal New Zealand Navy, said Reece was "lucky to be alive" but was "composed and calm" the whole time.
Jay Reece broke his neck in three places. Photo / Supplied
"Jay was face down, dangling upside down off the edge of a decent size drop," the sailor, who did not want to be named, told the Herald on Sunday.
"He was wedged in ice. With a second person holding me, I was able to get Jay upright and hold on to him. I kept on talking to make sure he was awake."
Reece described the sailor as his lifesaver, saying: "If he wasn't there, I wouldn't be here."
Reece was also grateful to the Whakapapa ski patrol and staff at Waikato Hospital who treated him.
Kahu Coleman, from the ski patrol, saw Reece in a "pretty precarious position perched above an icy 2- to 3-metre drop".
His team had to abseil into the icy knoll with crampons and ropes. They secured Reece in a rescue harness and airlifted him to Waikato Hospital.
Jay Reece taking some of his first steps, with the help of a walker, while on his road to recovery. Photo / Supplied
"It was tricky trying to get him off the edge. He was so lucky to have such a good outcome. If his vertebrae had moved by a few millimetres it would have caused irreversible damage in his spinal cord," Coleman said.
Once in hospital, Reece had surgery to repair and fuse his shattered neck.
"They put screws and plates in to fuse the three vertebrae together so they won't move," he said.
"They took a piece of hipbone and put it into little plastic discs that are inserted into your neck. The medical staff asked me 'How did you walk away from that? Most people would have been paralysed'."
Miraculously, two days after the operation, Reece took his first steps with a support frame and is now walking unaided. Last week, doctors told Reece he would have to wear a neck brace for another six weeks.
Skiers heading up the Whakapapa ski field. Photo / Supplied
A lengthy period of rehab - designed to gain as much neck movement as possible - then awaits.
As he recovers, he is urging snowboarders and skiers to wear helmets; something he wasn't wearing on the day of his near-death crash.
"I am so angry at myself – I always wear my helmet and tell others to do the same. I don't know why I didn't that day but it was a bad decision."
But the experience hasn't stopped the adrenaline junkie looking forward to more adventures.
"Sometimes bad things happen but you learn from them," he said.
"The accident has made me want to get out more. I am thankful I am here but it hasn't deterred me from enjoying the things I want to do."
