Burke was injured Jan. 10 on the same halfpipe where Kevin Pearce, a promising snowboarder from Norwich, Vt., sustained a serious head injury in 2009.
Burke, while trying to land a trick at the base of the halfpipe, crashed and struck her head, rupturing her vertebral artery. The torn artery led to a severe intracranial hemorrhage, which in turn caused Burke to enter into cardiac arrest at the scene, her family’s statement said.
As CPR was administered, Burke remained without a pulse and was not breathing. She was airlifted to the emergency department at University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City, where she was placed on life support. The next day, doctors performed surgery to repair the ruptured artery, though her recovery was far from assured.
“With injuries of this type, we need to observe the course of her brain function before making definitive pronouncements about Sarah’s prognosis for recovery,” Dr. William T. Couldwell, the surgeon who performed the operation, said the day after the procedure.
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