BANFF – Liam Wallace woke up in a hospital bed, with a foggy head and no memory of why he was there. But his current reality quickly came into focus as more of a nightmare.
Laying broken, a tube in his chest was sucking fluids out, his left lung felt like it was being squeezed tightly and his entire torso was in grueling, terrible agony.
It was the kind of extreme pain that being on the losing end of slamming into a tree at more than 50 kilometres per hour, wearing minimal protection, would feel like, which is what the national team athlete from Banff had experienced.
“I pretty much got the most severe chest trauma you can get without having your whole body reconstructed,” said Wallace. “Somehow, I’m so lucky.”
More than a year after the worst injury of his life, Wallace reflected on his recovery from a near-death ski accident. Although it was terrible, the recovery led to a greater appreciation of his health and sport, and one hell of a comeback that impressed peers and fans alike.
In 10 months, the 25-year-old alpine skier went from barely being able to walk down the street to the Bow River to winning gold medals and being ranked No. 1 in the technical race, the giant slalom (GS), on the Nor-Am Cup, a feeder system that provides a path to the World Cup.
A bad day at the hill
About to make his 30th start on the World Cup, Wallace was training in Bansko, Bulgaria, the day before the big GS race when he lost control and spun off course. Tumbling out-of-bounds, he was thrown hard into an unforgiving tree.
The b-netting that normally lines the course hadn’t been installed properly, which, by all standards, is an egregious error by the course crew. Without the red weaved safety fencing to catch Wallace, the devastating crash caused major damage to the Banff skier’s ribs, shattering most of them on his left side. He also had a collapsed lung, lacerated spleen and was knocked unconscious.
Racing to his battered body, medical personnel jumped into action on the side of the hill, deploying life-saving measures on Wallace. With his ability to get oxygen obstructed, a chest tube was inserted by an Austrian doctor, who Wallace said “essentially saved my life”, so that he could get airflow.
Still unconscious, Wallace was flown off the hill by helicopter to a hospital in Sofia where he received further treatment. However, the Banff skier described the next 13 days as “one of the worst two weeks of my life.”
“I don’t remember anything until pushing out of the gate,” said Wallace. “I have no recollection except waking up in the hospital.”
In great pain, it had to be explained to Wallace why he was there.
Describing the European hospital as “rugged”, Wallace was quite concerned when doctors began talking about removing his damaged spleen. At that point, the medical staff didn’t know what his complications were, said Wallace.
“The two weeks [in the hospital] were the traumatic, shitty part,” Wallace said.
“I didn’t get fed properly, I didn’t get proper [medication] management, [or] pain management, so I was pretty high on pain for four or five days before they really figured shit out and got me all sorted out.”
Wallace’s sister and father, and a member of Alpine Canada’s staff, were with the bed-ridden Canuck during his recovery in Europe. His body began to heal itself, though, so no surgeries overseas were set up.
“After a while, I got out of the ICU and into the trauma ward and then from there I had a medi-vac plane home, which was quite wild,” Wallace said.
On a small private jet, four stops were made before landing in Calgary on Feb. 21, where Wallace was taken to Foothills Medical Centre. He stayed there for one more week before being released on March 1.
Still in rough shape, being outdoors for the first time in three weeks was an overwhelming moment.
“When I stepped outside for the first time at Foothills: full-on, uncontrollable breakdown. I could not explain how good that felt to feel fresh air,” said Wallace.
Recovery in Banff
With energy zapped and his ability to walk limited, Wallace spent most of his first month at home in Banff.
The injury caused Wallace’s left lung to shrivel up to the size of a fist – a normal adult lung is about nine inches in length. He said functioning on one lung for a week-and-a-half was “horrendous” and he has felt its effects long after the accident. He also got staph infection, a skin infection caused by being exposed to bacteria on contaminated surfaces, after leaving Bulgaria.
“I had three chest tubes in from the start to finish, just trying to drain all that fluid that was not allowing me to breathe. It just took so long,” he said.
“One day I passed out walking up my staircase at home because I couldn’t get oxygen to my body and … I couldn’t stand for long.”
He added that he didn’t suffer from any concussion symptoms.
Prior to the nasty crash, Wallace was one of Canada’s top male technical skiers. In 2022, he was the overall points winner on the NorAm circuit. He had been gaining experience on the World Cup the past few years, with an eye on representing Canada at the 2026 Olympics.
Although, high-level racing was the furthest thing on his mind during the initial stages of recovery.
Being home in Banff gave Wallace solace while on the mend. Walking to the Bow River and back became a huge win for the injured athlete, and by the end of March 2024, he was jogging and doing basic physiotherapy.
“At this point, having the worst injury of my life, and having all the shittiest parts of it mostly gone and behind me, now you kind of see a little bit of the light at the end,” he said.
Returning to the start gate
During an interview with the Outlook in April 2025, more than a year after the accident, Wallace said he still feels tired in the aftermath of the accident.
When he was getting back to the gym, he had zero expectations of racing competitively in 2024-25. Wallace only started skiing again last October and was told he might be able to return to the slopes in early 2025.
“I saw him in the summer and fall a few times and you could just see it in his face and the way he was operating, how long of a recovery that this was really going to be,” said Erik Read.
A two-time Olympian from Canmore, Read was on the national team with Wallace in Bulgaria when the accident occurred.
“I know he was having a tough time with his energy levels … and just working back from scratch,” said Read.
Wallace felt OK in training, saying that he had a new sensation when he was back on skis. His ability on the slopes hadn’t taken as big of a hit as he initially thought, but his energy was still down.
However, Wallace was motivated to compete by December. With proper support around his recovery, Alpine Canada staff pushed him to get going in the recovery process earlier, he returned to action on Dec. 12 at a NorAm Cup in Panorama, near Invermere, British Columbia.
The results were “a complete wild scenario” for Wallace, winning gold in his first race back.
“To see him again in January and he’s like this lively guy, you could see the enthusiasm and passion and energy in his face was quite the transformation,” said Read.
“Given everything, that is extremely impressive. I don’t think anyone expected him to come back to ski racing that quickly.”
Despite setbacks, it was a remarkable moment for Wallace. He got himself in the mindset of being ready to compete this year.
Wallace followed up with three more NorAm podiums a gold in a FIS race overseas, and two silvers at national championships. Wallace was sixth overall on the NorAm circuit and won in overall points in GS.
At times, it felt like he didn’t have the injury and his first race back was a continuation of racing from Feb. 9, 2024.
His return has given him hope that next season, on the World Cup circuit, he will shoot to be consistently in the top-30. And who knows, maybe even a start at the Winter Olympics is part of his story.
“To give myself a good shot at competing for Canada is the obvious goal,” Wallace said. “I’d love to be able to do that and try to feel competitive there, too.”
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