Ingemar Backman injured

My friend and mega tweaker Ingemar Backman suffered a severe fall to his back a few days ago, while riding at a demo in Japan, which was almost fatal.
He was hitting a jump that he had cleared a few times prior and got caught by the wind which made him come up short, hit a mattress and then get bucked to the flat and landing on his back.

This was shot one sec before impact.



I can´t express in words how happy I am that he´s on his way to recovery.

I just got off the phone with him and he said he´s up and walking and should be healthy enough to possibly get on a plane in a week or so.
The doctors said that he would have been dead if he had arrived at hospital an hour or so later since his lungs were severely damaged.

And for this to happen in Japan... I can only imagine. With an almost complete language barrier and quite different infrastructures and hospital guidelines it´s not the easiest place to get treated. Thankfully Ingemar went to the hotel after resting for a while to grab his passport and headed to the local hospital, with an interpreter I might add.


The doctors inserted these tubes into his lungs using only local anesthesia. Photo by Tobbe Allanson.





Here´s an english link:
www.tackyworld.com/snowboard/article/?id=100152

Swedish link:
www.tacky.se/snowboard/artikler/display_article.asp?artikkelID=30670



Here´s Ingo with Allian teammates Forrest Shearer and Peter Ström, myself and Mob Dist/Stale owner Jonas Berglund.

For those of you who don´t know who Ingemar is (like f.ex Stevie Bell), or are born in the 90´s / never looked at snowboarding before 2001, here´s some background data.
Click on the pic to view the text bigger.
This was taken from Snowboarder Mag´s
"20 most influential snowboarders of all time"
article from 2007.



I also uploaded the clip from the legendary session that happened in Riksgränsen in May of 1996.
It´s THE ONE shot that introduced me to the snowboard filming world and the trick that gave Ingemar worldwide recognition.


Krya på dig Ingo. Du kan nog göra frontside
rockabilly´s (svårighetsgrad 9 tror jag) innan du vet ordet av. Kanske tom en switch?