Injured Students?

[dbny]

Have you ever had one of your students sustain an injury while in a lesson with you or after a lesson? Both have happened to me, and it really freaks me out and drains my confidence. Of course, I broke my wrist while having my own lesson with a coach at Lake Placid, and never thought about what the coach might have felt about it.

[Isk8NYC]

When I first started teaching again, I had a kid fall and get hurt pretty badly. In fairness, it had nothing to do with the group lesson -- the girl had on (literally!) brand-new skates that were just sharpened and had stepped away from the group to show off. She fell and cut her shin to the bone. I actually felt sick when I saw the injury.

Since then, I brushed up on my lifesaving/first aid/CPR skills and it's really improved my confidence. I have also found that keeping the class going is more important than my tending the student -- trust the skating director or manager to handle the injury calmly and safely. That helps keep the other students from getting panicky on the ice.

I did cause an injury a few weeks ago. Another coach was surprised to see me and called out to me as she skated past. Suddenly, she slipped off the heel of the blade and crashed to the ice, hitting her head. Ended up in the hospital with a mild concussion but was released the same night. I felt terrible that she was talking to me when she fell.

[phoenix]

I always feel terrible when a student takes a bad fall in a lesson. The worst one was an adult student who broke her wrist. It wasn't a bad fall at all, she just lost her balance a bit and "sat down". But her had went down to break the fall & she ended up w/ a hairline fracture. That was this summer, & she hasn't come back yet....don't know if she will or not. :(

[peanutskates]

what would a coach do if a student was seriously injured for like 6 months or something? do they put another person in their lesson time or wait for them to come back?

[kayskate]

what would a coach do if a student was seriously injured for like 6 months or something? do they put another person in their lesson time or wait for them to come back?

I was just discussing this with another coach yesterday. She had this problem recently. The kid got hurt and she could immediately calculate her lost earnings. Since coaches do not generally get paid unless they are actively teaching, the coach wanted to fill the spot w another student. This may sound uncaring, but the truth is coaching is a job and a coach needs to earn a living. If a student is out for any reason including injury, vacation, school, family problems, etc.; the coach loses income. It is often difficult to fill the spot unless an existing student wants more time. Otherwise the coach has to scare up a totally new student.

Kay

[dbny]

what would a coach do if a student was seriously injured for like 6 months or something? do they put another person in their lesson time or wait for them to come back?

This happened to my DD; she was the injured student. We never expected her coach to hold a place for her, but when she returned, the coach did her best to find a convenient time for us.

[jskater49]

what would a coach do if a student was seriously injured for like 6 months or something? do they put another person in their lesson time or wait for them to come back?

Where we used to skate, if you contracted for a lesson a certain day of the week - you were obligated from Sept - May to pay for that lesson. Broken leg, sick, vacation, whatever. Fortunately there was only one coach so it was very easy to sell lessons. There was a girl who broke her leg and her sister took the lesson.

j

[SynchroSk8r114]

what would a coach do if a student was seriously injured for like 6 months or something? do they put another person in their lesson time or wait for them to come back?

I coach and that is my primary income for now, so just losing that student and then not filling their spot would be illogical for me. I haven't had this happen to any of my students; however, I would need to fill his/her spot to make for the money I was losing on that student. What I'd probably do is find someone, probably another child in that injured skater's family (granted his/her sibling skated) and offer that time to the sibling. If that wasn't possible, I'd open it up to whomever was willing to pay for that time slot. I'd definitely make it known that the filler student can only have that additional lesson time until my injured skater came back, and that he/she would have to pick up a different day/time if that skater wanted to maintain the additional time.

[littlekateskate]

My daughter has never really had an injury on the ice other than a bloody lip. Her coach felt horrible and kept apologizing. I never would feel the coach responsible, and i expect if my daughter keeps skating she is going to eventually have bad falls alot.

As well i would never expect a coach to hold a slot for us.

Just a parents opinion :)

[CanAmSk8ter]

what would a coach do if a student was seriously injured for like 6 months or something? do they put another person in their lesson time or wait for them to come back?

I'd likely ask some of my other students if they wanted to pick up a second lesson each week, making sure they understood it was only temporary. If I didn't have any takers, I'd probably see if anyone was willing to commit to an extra lesson every other week or every three weeks and have a few students alternate. That way I could fill the slot without taking on a new student who I might or might not be able to accomodate when the original student returned.

If I couldn't fill it that way, I'd be willing to take a new student in that slot as long as they understood that it was temporary and that I couldn't guarantee them a slot when the prior student returned. Between November and March coaches at my rink get a fair number of requests from parents for "just a few" lessons so their child can skate well enough to have fun at birthday parties and public sessions with friends. I'm usually putting people on a wait list by Halloween, so most of the year I'd have no trouble finding new students.

The only thing I'd ask of the injured student or their parents would be that if the skater realized he/she was going to be off the ice longer than originally thought, or if he/she decided not to come back to skating, that they let me know as soon as possible so that I could find a permanent student for that time slot.

[LilJen]

I'll have to ask my coach. I broke my ankle about 10-15 mins after finishing a lesson with her. Was just dinking around, not practicing anything in particular, and coach was gone (only another younger coach with a young student on the rink at the time). I imagine in her 40ish years of coaching she's probably seen everything!

[fsk8r]

I've not done the whole injury thing with skating, but I keep ending up travelling for work and lessons at my rink are like gold dust.
I do know that my sister was once able to pick up lessons on the understanding that she only had them whilst another student recovered from her broken ankle and that they would disappear when she returned, which they did. She was mildly miffed then at not being able to get a new slot with that coach (but was then actually happier with her new one).
Me on the other hand, I got a Saturday morning slot which are like gold dust, had had it for about 6months before I was sent to work overseas for 8months. I told my coach what was going on, and she was happy to keep my slot open for me. Apparently she just gave an extra lesson to her competitive skaters whilst I was away and it was whoever wanted it each week.
I was very grateful for her doing this, as I was going to suggest that I paid something towards keeping the lesson open, but in the end didn't have to.
In the end coach and I became a lot closer because of me going away, as we would email each other, and she attributes me learning to skate to going away, which I think is really nice of her, as she's actually complementing my overseas coach for really helping, and not wanting to take credit for it herself.