Ski and snowboard safety, as the safety bodies, avalanche centres and researchers publish it.

This section is a reference to what has been published about injury and risk in skiing and snowboarding. It is not a safety course. Skiing and riding are learned in person from a qualified instructor, avalanche terrain needs avalanche training and the current forecast, and injuries are a matter for doctors; nothing on these pages replaces any of them. An injury, a suspected concussion, frostbite or hypothermia needs medical care.

How these pages are written

• Every rule carries its body, level and date. FIS rules are given with the document, edition and section, discipline by discipline. Alpine, freestyle, snowboard, cross-country, ski jumping, Nordic combined, ski mountaineering and telemark are different sports with different rule books, and no rule from one is applied to another.
• Equipment is not presented as prevention. No page says a helmet, back protector or airbag prevents injury or death. The pages report what the standards test and what the bodies and researchers say, with who says it. FIS says helmets "do not offer an absolute protection", and the helmet research is given both ways.
• Injury rates are never merged. Each figure keeps its own study, place and years, because the studies count in different ways.
• Deaths are given only in aggregate. Counts come from NSAA, coroner surveys, avalanche centres and studies, with season and source, and no individual is named or described. NSAA's own fact sheets could not be opened on 24 October 2026, so its recent figures reach these pages through press reports, and its 2024-25 count is disputed.
• Concussion rules are never one answer. FIS, U.S. Ski & Snowboard, Alpine Canada and GB Snowsport each have their own, for their own levels and ages.
• Avalanche danger is given as the centres publish it. The European 2018/19 scale is the one in force; a revised scale was due for a final EAWS vote at the end of October 2026, with no result found on the research date. Avalanche courses are named, never taught.
• Nothing is taught or treated. The pages contain no skiing or riding technique, no binding settings, no first aid, and no avalanche rescue, transceiver, probing, shovelling, snowpack or route-finding method.
• Gaps are admitted. Anything that rests only on a search summary or a secondary source is said to be unconfirmed, with what it rests on. Italy's all-ages helmet rule, for example, rests on secondary legal sources.

The pages in this section

1. Injuries named: Blackcomb (1991-92), two US ski areas (2000-05), the Swiss BFU, Germany's ASU Ski and a meta-analysis of elite athletes, each kept apart.
2. What helmets do and do not do: use rates, what ASTM F2040, EN 1077 and Snell test, the limits the bodies state, and the research both ways.
3. Deaths at ski areas: NSAA counts by season, the disputed 2024-25 figure and Colorado's coroner surveys.
4. Collisions and the codes: the FIS and NSAA codes with their editions, and what the collision counts show.
5. Tree wells and snow immersion: NSAA's definition of snow immersion suffocation and the few counts that exist.
6. Avalanches as published: the danger scales and the pending European revision, deaths from CAIC, Avalanche Canada and the SLF, and courses named.
7. Cold and altitude: hypothermia, frostbite and altitude sickness as the NHS names them, and the cold-weather kit the rules mention.
8. Concussion by body: FIS's 2026 guidelines, U.S. Ski & Snowboard, Alpine Canada, GB Snowsport and the laws named.
9. FIS athlete safety rules: airbags, helmets, cut-resistant underwear and back protectors by discipline and season.
10. Youth helmet rules: Italy, Austria, Nova Scotia, New Jersey and the places with no law.
11. Lift safety regulators: who licenses and inspects lifts in Colorado, British Columbia, Switzerland, the EU and France.
12. Safeguarding: the FIS Snow Safe Policy (2018) and the US and Canadian arrangements.

Related reading

What each standard tests is in the equipment section: helmets and standards, goggles and back protectors, avalanche equipment standards and race suits, airbags and cut protection. The codes of conduct in full are on the codes of conduct, and the terms are explained in the glossary.