Anatomy of a ski collision

Usually, I try to ski fast to get ahead of the pack and to prevent being rear-ended. 

A few days ago, I was skiing under a lift that I particularly enjoy when the weather is cold and foggy, but that intersects with a highly trafficked ski run at its bottom. 

So here I was, doing laps and on my way, skiing fairly fast, but in total control at my used speed, moving to catch the chairlift when I see a large-frame male skier on my right catching up with me and skiing in parallel towards the same direction. 

Ahead of us and in the space separating us was a female snowboarder moving seemingly across the slope in the path of the fast skier on my left. I fraction of second latter, I saw that man hit the snowboarder on its right, making her bounce violently towards my path. 

She was now in my way and there was no way I could correct to avoid contact. In less than a fraction of second I thought to myself “I’m going to kill that person”. Then I found myself on the ground at the level of the lady now stopped with both of my ski bindings release and an excruciating pain on the corner of my left shoulder. 

The runaway skier who provoked the chain reaction was long gone. I remembered he wore a pale yellow jacket but that’s about it. Thankfully the snowboarder got up and was okay. Immediately, skiers and even a ski patrol stopped to inquire if we needed help. 

For the sake of me, I couldn’t provide a precise description of the guilty skier except for the color of his parka. My pain was awful, but I was under an adrenaline rush, so I put on my skis back on and decided to take another run to exorcise the incident. I skied okay but the pain was unrelenting. 

I had a horrible time getting out my ski boots that were very cold (it was 22 degrees out) and I manage to drive home without too much difficulty. Now that the adrenaline flow was used up I was really hurting. I took a pain killer and tried to reconstruct the incident.

From what I could draw from the scene that stayed in my mind (yet, I’m not saying I’m totally right in my interpretation), the fast skier must have gone over the board, impacting the snowboarder on it right binding, made her bounce like a ball on billiard towards me at an extremely high rate of speed and energy.

Instantly, the tip of her board must have hit the side of my right boot causing my binding to release why I flew in the air and fell on my left shoulder. 

A lucky chain-reaction that prevented a direct and potentially lethal hit between me and the snowboarder. Now this open the question as to faced with hit and run skiers? 

How do you find them after the collision? I’ll soon have a few ideas to share...