Living ups and down: The Life Experiences of the Spinal Cord Injured in Winter Sport of Tube-riding: A Qualitative Phenomenology Research

Winter sports are very entertaining, exciting, and pleasurable but they can be simultaneously very dangerous and hazardous with the high ratio of damages. The hostile environment, equipments, devices, and the athlete's lack of sufficient skills cause the increase in the amount of damages and dangers derived from them. One of the winter sports is tube-riding. Because the tube-rider does not have any controls on the tube with regard to the speed control, path direction, brake, and stop, it leads to the high amount of damages; therefore this study aims to investigate the life experiences of the spinal cord injured in the winter sport of tube-riding. The researcher used a quantitative approach of qualitative phenomenology in the study. The participants were the spinal cord injured who were selected among the injured of winter sport of Koohrang tube-riding piste in Chaharrmahal and Bakhtiari province. The sampling was aim based and finally through data saturation, six spinal cord injured were selected for the study. Data were collected by the interviewing the participants deeply and then were noted completely. Data analysis was based on Colaizzi approach. After analyzing the data, the life living up and down theme was elicited. The theme includes four subsets: 1) Physically living ups and down, 2) Mental, psychical, and emotional living ups and down, 3) Economical living ups and down, and 4) Social living ups and down. The obtained results of the study present a deep understanding of the life experiences of the spinal cord injured in the winter sport of tube-riding to the nurses and hygienic observers and also it is a warning for people and authorities to prevent and decrease the damages of this winter sport. Abedi HA, Ghani Dehkordi F, Hajinezhad MA, Najafi Khah MA, Ghezelsefli Z, Esmaeili Vardanjani SA. The Life Experiences of the Spinal Cord Injured in the Winter Sport of Tube-riding: A Qualitative Phenomenology Research. Life Sci J 2012;9(4):5529-5535] (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 82