Still standing

Poplawski takes a break from Mammoth Mountain during a DSES luncheon Thursday, part of the Wounded Warriors camp. (Photo: Lunch)

In the sport of skiing, E.J. Poplawski had been killing it since he first climbed on sticks at 2 years old. He was racing by 8, and just a few years ago, had worked his way up the ranks of Telemark Freeskiers. As of March 25, 2006, he had made his way to the final round (top 10) of the 10th Annual U.S. Telemark Extreme Freeskiing Championships at Crested Butte, Colo.
“I stomped my landing almost perfectly but my ski broke when I landed my last cliff drop and caused me to hit a tree,” Poplawksi said. The accident ruptured a major artery in his right leg, costing him the limb and nearly his life. It’s been almost four years since that life-changing day, but time and fate have led him from that ski run to walk some new paths.
Poplawski, 34, tired but still charged up after a fifth place finish in Snowmobile at the Winter X Games, made the trek to Mammoth for an inspirational speaking engagement before a packed meeting room at the Westin Monache as part of Disabled Sports Eastern Sierra’s Wounded Warrior Camp held this past week.
His story covered how he lost the leg, of course, but Poplawski also talked about the various stages of recovery … what it’s like to wake up and find out your leg is gone, going through rehab and learning to walk again with your “new” leg, not to mention handling all the depression and coming to terms with how your life’s been irrevocably altered.
Sometimes for the worse, but as Poplawski will tell you, far more often for the better.
He’s frank when talking about the accident. “I heard a doctor say, ‘Uh-oh,’ not what you want to hear. They said I had no pulse in my foot,” he told the crowd. “I was wearing a motocross brace that’s actually more of an articulated piece of body armor, since I’d already blown out both knees. That probably saved my life. If I hadn’t been wearing it, bestcase they’d have had to cut the flow of the femoral artery near the groin and I’d have lost the whole leg, but most likely I would have bled out.”
A few hours later, he was in Denver and a few days later, woke to find his leg had been amputated four inches above the knee. “I wanted to know what the f*@k was going on. I was in shock. My family told me what happened and I passed out again,” he recalled. “I wanted to die.”
Thoughts of suicide, he concluded, are “only natural,” but Poplawski said that’s only one phase of coping with what’s happened. “I figured that If you end it all, you don’t get to find out what opportunities tomorrow will bring. You realize your life is not even close to over. You can still get out there and do anything. You just have to learn how to do it differently.”
One of those opportunities was linking up with prosthetics designer Jarem Frye, another above-the-knee telemark skier amputee, who started his own prosthetic company, Symbiotech, where he developed the revolutionary XT9 ESPK [Energy Storing Prosthetic Knee], which Poplawski now uses when he telemarks. “I watched a video of him telemark skiing and that was a game-changer,” he said.
Frye’s invention in turn led him to orthopedic training with the XT9 at Utah-based SPOT [Specialized Prosthetic and Orthotic Technologies], opening the door to Poplawski’s return not only to telemark skiing, but also downhill, snowboarding, wakeboarding and snowmobiling.
He’ll likely never reach his previous heights of telemarking competition again, but has instead hopped on the adaptive ski racing circuit. “I’d love to get to the Olympics, but that’s too big a dream at this point. I’ve only been on skis for three seasons and need to work on my technique.” He competed in a Super G event last year, which he admitted made him “as scared as I’ve ever been.” His passion at the moment: snowmobiling.
“About four weeks before it started, I lucked into getting a shot at an opening in the Winter X Games, when a team withdrew. I lined up some sponsors to cover half the costs and bought a used 2008 sled that had run well for a father-son team and entered the adaptive class,” he said. Of course, by the time he got the sled and got everything in place, he only had about 6 days of practice.
“The funny part is I had no business being there. I was out there with all these pros who are used to sending it and going huge. I was just the pace rabbit they lapped!” he quipped. That fifth place finish, he later explained, was great, but only happend because the actual fifth place team broke their sled. “What medal is that, anyway? Copper? Tin? Aluminum?” He and the crowd shared a laugh, as his Winter X medal was passed around the room.
In all seriousness, though, Poplawski said part of the trick to adjusting to this new take on life goes back to the individual. “Never stereotype, never pre-judge … not even yourself,” he advises. “Learn how to maintain your tools [posthetics and parts]. When you’re on a ski slope or in the middle of nowhere, you’re the one who’s going to have to make your own adjustments.”
Ask him how he handles fear and he’ll tell you it’s one of the tools in his toolbox. “I like fear. I thrive on it. A little bit of fear is healthy; it lets you know you’re alive.”
March 25, 2006, still haunts him to this day. “The devastation never goes away. I always come back to it,” he said. Watching new video of Poplawski skinning a hill in Flagstaff or thrashing a sled through deep powder, one can’t help but sense that devastation is part of a newfound sense of joy that propels him. “Look beyond, go for something new, push your limits. You have to visualize it, believe in it, or you’ll never make it happen.”
Poplawksi, a carpenter and contractor when not on the snow or a lake somewhere, said he’s back to work, and digging being back in competition. “I’m enjoying life again.”
Find out more about Poplawski on his website: web.mac.com/ejpoplawski/iWeb/site/Welcome.html.