Skate Anatomy | Arto Saari

LEFT SIDE

Insecurity Guard
This resulted from the same injury at the Slam City Jam where my board knocked me in the head that you’ll read about below. As I’ve been told, Geoff Rowley and Ed Templeton saw the whole thing go down and came running down to help me and to make sure there wouldn’t be any more boards connecting with my head. It wasn’t the boards that were a threat, though. It was the security. Some security guards came charging down to clear the course, which included everyone who was trying to help me. The security pushed people around, which caused more pushing and pulling back and led to a miniature riot between the skaters and the security, all while I was lying unconscious in the middle of the mayhem. During the tumult, someone stepped on my hand and dislocated my little finger, which was the icing on the cake for that day. I ended up getting a cast and some screws for a month to keep my finger in place.

Vert Hurts
One of the first times I tried to skate vert I was really excited about doing ollie fakies half way up the ramp. I started to do ’em higher and higher and yelled to my friend that I wanted one more before we hit the road. That “one more,” landed me on the flat bottom of the ramp holding my wrist that had gone into an “S” shape.

The Bionic Fun Pedal Knee
I’ve had some real troubles with this knee, but for the first time I hurt it, I was doing a nollie down a set of stairs in Really Sorry. I tore my PCL on that slam and it threw me into a spiral of different surgeries, doctors, torn ligaments and all sorts of space-age equipment that has been shoved in there to keep it rocking on in the free world.

CENTER

The Pump and Dump
At the Slam City Jam I was trying to pump speed for another obstacle and I guess I did not land on my board at all. What ensued was me falling down and going unconscious while Chris Senn watched the whole situation go down. He didn’t see me hit my head, so he thought I would just get up and move out of the way, but being knocked out, that wasn’t happening. Instead, he continued to observe as my board caught speed from the top of the ramp and rolled straight towards my dome piece where it finally connected with the left corner of my eye, splitting it right open, causing a pool of blood to collect around my head. It probably looked pretty gnarly. My concussion wiped me out four hours, which resulted with me waking up in the hospital to a nurse shoving a needle into the corner of my eye as she was getting ready to give me 12 stitches.

20 Grand Brain Scan
A month before the Slam City Jam I got another head injury in pretty much the same spot. The story goes, I was trying to skate this 14-stair handrail on a hot California day. Unfortunately, the boards had gotten all soggy in the car on the way down to San Dieguito. I was trying to get myself to switch front board the rail, but with the soggy board and the heat, I just ended up focusing that piece of soggy shit. This did not fly well in the eyes of the skate gods. I set up a new board, started to warm up with a feeble grind on the rail and was rewarded with a hang-up at the top of the rail causing me to fly down the stairs with the left side of my head landing first on the last step of the set. I got knocked out for a few hours and puked a puddle around myself while waiting for the ambulance and being very out of it. I spent the night in the hospital and got some sort of brain scan that set me back about 20 grand. At 6 AM I was kicked out of the hospital 20 grand poorer.

Arto’s Bum Hearto
It was a fairly chilled day in fall time and I was doing a nollie tailslide on a ledge off of four stairs. I got scared and thought I was going to sack it. This is when my heart popped out of its right track for the first time. I went to the hospital to get helped and they pumped me full of intravenous drugs that did absolutely nothing. Eventually, they had to use emergency blasters to blast my heart back to its right course of action. When I woke up from the blasting, the doctors told me that I had Wolf Parkinson White Syndrome and I should eat some pills to keep my heart chilled while they scheduled a surgery eight months from then. I thought it’d be pretty perfect. I’d be able to go to America to skate for a winter and make a bet with Ed Templeton that I wouldn’t start drinking and smoking like all the other migrating Europeans do after they get my surgery. I lost that bet, of course, which resulted in more injuries.

I Got The Black Lung
Done a lot of damage to myself after I lost the bet to Ed. As a result I’ve lost copious amounts of brain cells and I’ve got a nice pair of fairly black lungs.

RIGHT SIDE

Ligament Condition
I sprained my right ankle on a 9-stair nollie 180 kickflip while filming for the Sorry video. I only stretched the ligament, but the doctor said it was pretty bad and decided to put it in a cast even though the bones weren’t broken. My ankle was actually in worse shape after a month of having a cast on it and it took me two months to get it moving right again.

Pity Potty
I was at a tender age of ten years old and I was climbing from one pine tree to another when I happened to fall hands and face first onto an icy field of weeds. I broke both my wrists and had to get a few stitches on my dome piece. It was quite annoying to try to figure out the daily use of the toilet when you can’t use your hands properly because of heavy casts.