Knees & Skiing #3 — My First Surgery
Updated: Sep 29
As I shared last time, a failed jump landing on Yongpyong's Silver Slope left me with my first knee injury: a complete ACL tear. Back then — around 1989 — there was a saying: "If you tear your cruciate ligament, your career is over." For an athlete, a torn ACL was almost a death sentence.
Deciding on surgery
The next year I entered university and made up my mind to have the surgery. At the time, the two most renowned knee surgeons in Korea were a leading specialist at Kyung Hee University Hospital and another at the Police Hospital. After some difficulty, I became a patient of the Kyung Hee surgeon — and I still can't forget that day.
A shock in the operating room
Two days before surgery, I slipped out of the hospital one evening and had a beer with friends — a decision that came back to haunt me. The night before the operation, repeated blood tests showed my liver values had risen, so general anesthesia was switched to spinal anesthesia. As a result, I was conscious throughout the entire surgery — hearing and seeing everything.
Perhaps because a ski athlete had come in for knee surgery, more than ten intern doctors filed into the operating room. As he disinfected my leg, the surgeon showed my knee to the interns — "Look how thick this skier's leg is." Having never had spinal anesthesia before, I felt the anesthetic pulsing around my nose with every breath, and I was so tense I could barely breathe.
Then, midway through the operation, the surgeon even directed one of the interns to try it. "Go on, give it a try…" A long, tense pause — then a thud, and a sharp voice rang out: "No — not like that!" In that moment, one thought ran through my mind: am I a guinea pig here? That was my first knee surgery — and the reality of Korean sports medicine at the time.
But I didn't stop
Back on the slopes in the years after that first surgery.
It was a genuinely shocking experience. Yet coming through it, I grew stronger — and as an athlete, and later a coach, I felt in my bones how much the body matters. That first surgery was the beginning of a long road of injuries, operations, and rehabilitation.
Next up
In the next post, I'll share the reality of my first rehabilitation — its failures, the blind spots of rehab in that era, and how I overcame them.
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Thank you for reading.
A note: this is my personal experience, not medical advice. Please consult your own doctor or specialist before making any health decisions.
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