Figure skater Elvis Stojko recovering after falling, hitting head in Hamilton
Taken to hospital after Stars on Ice performance
Elvis Stojko wants skating fans — particularly those who saw him injured at FirstOntario Centre Saturday night — to know that he feels all right, and is recovering from his head injury.
“I’m a bit dizzy, but I’m fine,” the three-time world figure skating champion and double Olympic silver medallist told The Spectator about noon on Sunday.
Stojko, 45, was injured when he caught the edge of his skate blade on the ice, during “retakes” for “Stars On Ice,” the skating show which is currently touring Canada. The show played the Air Canada Centre in Toronto Thursday and at London’s Budweiser Gardens Sunday afternoon.
Saturday’s show in Hamilton was being taped for a CBC-TV broadcast later in the year. When live shows are taped, any elements of a skater’s routine during the live performance in which an obvious mistake is made are reskated at the end of the show during the “retakes” in front of the live audience. Those sequences are then edited into the finished product.
It was not, as first reported, on a double Axel that Stojko was injured, but rather before he got to that relatively easy (for him) jump.
“It was a section when I do a slide,” he told The Spectator from Toronto. “The ice was pretty chewed up from the skating. I caught the edge, it turned me the other way and shot my feet right over my head.
“The only thing that saved me (from a worse injury) was my ability to stay loose. My body was limp.”
He learned that relaxation technique from a lifetime of studying martial arts, he said.
Stojko says he was taken to the Juravinski Hospital but was released after being examined by
emergency staff, and says there was no concussion. He spent the night in a Toronto hotel, but had to be periodically wakened as part of headinjury protocol instituted by “Stars on Ice” physiotherapist Marla Pichler.
“Marla and the first aid staff at the arena were incredible,” Stojko said. “So were the EMS people, the ambulance people and the emergency staff at the hospital. They deserve thanks.”
Before departing the arena, Stojko waved to the audience, hoping to assure them that he was all right.
“I didn’t want people freaked out,” he said. “People were there to enjoy themselves, not see that kind of thing. I scraped my head along the ice when it happened, so I had blood on my hands.
“I don’t want people to worry. Tell them I’m fine, I’m recovering.”
Stojko still has to follow, and finish, the “Stars on Ice” protocol for concussion-like symptoms so did not accompany the travelling troupe to London. The tour resumes in Winnipeg Wednesday night, and follows with five more western Canadian stops.
Stojko, who says he’s still a bit dizzy, doesn’t know if he’ll rejoin “Stars on Ice” on the western swing.
“I’ve got a protocol I have to follow,” he told The Spec. “But I’ve got three days to get back.
“The big thing is to let people know that I’m OK.”