Yuto Totsuka left the halfpipe field on a stretcher after the clash at the 2018 Winter Olympics
Several snowboarders fell during their first races in the men's halfpipe final, held here on Wednesday morning, with one so severe that it required a team of staff to ski the athlete fallen off the slope to receive additional medical attention. Yuto Totsuka of Japan went too far from the edge of the pipe and hit the edge of the halfpipe before falling approximately 35 feet to the flat bottom, hitting the snow and lying face down while a piece of his equipment slid down the track.
Totsuka sat down while several skiers ran down the pipe. With obvious pain and discomfort, he finally moved to a stretcher and was carried along the length of the track. From there, he was loaded on a snowmobile and then in an ambulance to perform more tests and evaluation. A representative of the Japanese team indicated that Totsuka was not seriously injured in the crash. The handful of slips, and the most important accident, occur in the middle of good conditions for the halfpipe, with cloudy skies and slightly higher temperatures than what has been the standard during the first days of competition in the Pyeonchang Games.
