ZHANGJIAKOU, China (AP) — Freestyle skier Jon Sallinen’s first run in Olympic halfpipe qualifying Thursday wasn’t picture perfect. He drifted out of the halfpipe and collided with a cameraman.

Collarbone aching, the 21-year-old from Finland picked himself up and tried it again in run No. 2 — only to fall once more and have to make the walk up the pipe to retrieve one of his ski poles.

All just a snapshot of a dangerous sport that leaves most of these athletes with scars, both inside and out.

Sallinen’s wrecks during the qualifying round gave the day’s leader, Aaron Blunck, flashbacks to his own crash in the halfpipe 16 months ago, when he broke six ribs, fractured his pelvis, lacerated his kidney and bruised his heart by landing on the pipe’s cold, unforgiving edge.

“I cringed on the inside,” explained Blunck, who was one of four Americans to make it to Saturday’s final. “I get PTSD a little bit of just like, ‘Oh.'”

It was a scary run-in with the cameraman for Sallinen. As he was exiting his second-to-last jump, he landed low and wasn’t ready to go into the next wall that fast. He looked up, his ski caught and he couldn’t get off the wall. It sent him straight over the edge and into the shooter.

Coming out of the pipe like that — and landing on the deck — doesn’t happen that often on this level.

“Sometimes if you mess up the takeoff like I did right there, that’s the worst outcome,” Sallinen explained. “I was lucky not to land on my head and then maybe get a little cushion from the camera guy. … I hope he’s all good.

“At the same time, I landed straight on my collarbone and I felt some movement, heard some cracking in there. I hope it’s not broken, but it’s really painful right now.”

Ben Harrington of New Zealand had a frightening spill, too — one that left him motionless for a moment as he lay at the bottom of the halfpipe. His teammate, Nico Porteous, was making his rounds of post-qualifying interviews when he suddenly realized Harrington had crashed. Porteous jumped over barriers to run out to the halfpipe and check on Harrington.