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Cadillac Skier Refuses to Give Up on Ski Family Following Serious Injury

CADILLAC - Following her sophomore ski season, Georgette Sake suffered an injury at Caberfae Peaks. The accident left her with a broken jaw, wrist, and other injuries. Luckily, she was able to make a full recovery and is currently one of Michigan’s best high school skiers in the state.

“My ski popped off. And I went right into a tree and I don’t really remember much after that,” Sake said. “I broke my jaw in four places. I broke my wrist. And then I had a grade five laceration to my liver and then just some little fractures around like the orbital bone in my eye and my sinus cavity.”

Sake took all of her doctor’s precautions to recover as quickly as possible, but the hardest part of recovery for Sake wasn’t physical, it was mental.

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“I didn’t know if I could get back out on the snow. And like for like a moment there. I didn’t want to,” she recalled.

She started going to a hypnotherapist, who specialized in working with athletes, to help her combat her nervousness around skiing. But also helping her through recovery was the ski community in Cadillac.

“They gave me a donation which was really nice, for my medical bills. And just all the cards and all the gifts that they were sending me like, it really helped a lot just knowing everybody was there,” she said. “And actually, our bus driver that drives us to all our meets, he gave me this book, and it’s a Lindsey Vonn book. She’s a World Cup skier. And she dealt with a lot of injuries through her career and she’s been one of my idols growing up, like, she was my all time favorite skier, like I wanted to be her. And then after reading that book, I was like, well, if she can get back on the snow then I can too.”

Sake recovered on July 4th, five months after her accident, months faster than the doctors expected. She skied for the first time that winter at a ski camp in Colorado. But before she knew it, she was right back where it all happened, at Caberfae Peaks.

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“When I got back here, there was a little fear. And I noticed that in my skiing,” Sake said.

Fast forward to now, she’s wrapped up her senior season finishing 2nd at states in Giant Slalom and 6th in slalom, helping the Cadillac girls team clinch third.

Sake has that same team to thank for getting her back on the hill.

“I consider all those girls my sisters and Mr. Netzley, my ski coach- I’ve been around him since I was a baby- like, he’s more than just a coach. They’re all family. So that wasn’t something I wanted to give up on.”

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