During filming, news reached Jill Kinmont that her cousin Jimmy Lewis, who had visited her during her hospitalization 19 years before, suffered a spinal cord injury in a fall and was paralyzed.
The real Jill Kinmont was a technical adviser on the film. Her work included three days on Mammoth Mountain, where many of the ski racing shots were filmed. She was transported on a mechanical "snowcat", with her wheelchair strapped to the back.
Jill Kinmont: I try not to let it, but sometimes it all plays back in my mind, and when it does, I remember the words that Dick Buek said to me the last time I saw him: "How lucky I am to have found someone and something that saying goodbye to is so damned awful."