One Happy Anniversary
A year after a life-threatening crash, Hank Shipman and
Scotty Veenis ski together again By Eric Williams
Hank Shipman (left) and Scotty Veenis defied doctors’ predictions in
skiing again, together, a year after a devastating car crash.
After taking the brunt of a head-on collision
while traveling home from a ski camp last April,
Hank Shipman and his coach Scotty Veenis weren’t
given much hope that they would ski again — cer-
tainly not within just 12 months.
After exactly one year of surgeries and rehab,
the tough-as-nails duo clicked into their boards in
Park City on April 10 to celebrate their respective
recoveries and return to the slopes.
“I always knew I would be able to ski again,” said
Shipman, who has worked through countless
hours of physical therapy over the last 12 months
to restore a compound fracture of his left femur, a
broken scapula, a traumatic brain injury and four
broken vertebrae in his neck. “I knew Scotty would
be able to ski again, too; it just took a while. It’s
crazy that it’s a year, though, because in some
ways it feels like it’s not even close to a year and
in some ways it feel like it was five years ago just
because it’s been so many little baby steps.”
Shipman returned to school at Rowland Hall after
three months in hospitals and is again the baseball
team’s starting second baseman. “It’s awesome
to be out here, I’m loving it,” said Shipman on
a sunny spring day in Park City. “My body feels
great; I’d say its about 85 percent. I got my femur
metal taken out in February and my leg doesn’t
hurt anymore, so from here on it’s just strength,
no more pain, which is awesome.”
Shipman, a junior, is still evaluating a possible
return to ski racing during his senior year while
he makes plans to apply to college and become
a pre-med student.
