Skier death at 7 Springs...
February 16, 2007
19 posts
12 users
5k+ views
Come on people...ski/ride in control and, hopefully, wear a helmet.
Take Care and Enjoy the Slopes thie Weekend!
The Colonel
Reall sad.
That right there is the reasaon I went ahead yesterday and ordered a helmet. Steep and Cheap had this one:
Pro-tec Ace Freecarve Helmet
Matte Black
$22 bucks. Almost bought last week at ski barn in Valley for $69.
Wow that is horrible news. Condolences to his family and friends. That trail can be a real handful on Saturday afternoons with the volume of skiers. Skiing in control is one thing. Better to keep your head on a swivel as well. Stay safe DCskiers.
LOWER SLOPE areas with feeds from multiple trails, especially mixing skill sets is the WORST FREAKIN' PLACE TO BE at today's ski resorts... that I can tell. (groomed trails)
Agree 100%. Go to most of the popular places out west and it feels like the most dangerous place on the mountain isn't the bowls or the glades or any of the technical terrain. It's the download to the base area that really gets dicey. My deepest condolences got out to the skiers family it's a terrible tragedy.
Hit by a snowboarder... At least the guy stopped, and certainly the severity of the accident was a freak occurance.
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Hit by a snowboarder... At least the guy stopped, and certainly the severity of the accident was a freak occurance.
Wondered how long that would take. Does it really matter what gear the person who hit him was on? Does the snowboard make it malicious? Would you have said the same if it was a skier? The guy died, I feel bad for his family and the person who hit him. Lack of ability, bad timing and most likely lack of good judgement were probably all contributing factors here, not the gear.
If I'm not mistaken, that's 2 skiers that have died in the past 4 years at Seven Springs. The death prior to this one occurred on the front face and that skier was wearing a helmet. So wearing a helmet is no guarantee of safety, but it sure can help.
I stopped skiing on weekends this year at Seven Springs because of the crowded conditions. I am in no way putting blame on this tragic situation on anyone, but in the past 7 years that I have been skiing at Seven Springs, I have never witnessed anyone getting reprimanded in the Slow Zone area. That, of course doesn't mean it doesn't occur, it's just that I have never seen it. I know the ski patrol constantly has their hands full and they do extraordinary work, but maybe it's time for all resorts to hire people exclusively to keep out of control skiers/boarders in control and let the ski patrol do what they do best, and that's to get injured people off of the hill safely.
My condolences to the family.
That frontside bowl tends to be pretty sketchy. I always find it a little better out on the extremities. One thing that drives me nuts is that early turn off point for the Foggy Goggle. It always seems to back up onto the trail.
I read somewhere that increased helmet use has NOT translated to a lower death rate on the slopes... of course 100% of people don't wear helmets so it may be that compliance rates are still too low (or the sample hasn't gone on long enough) to show up in stats.
I wear a helmet so don't blast me on that one...
anyway -- what i think is its just a combination of factors:
short seasons with a desire to fill the slopes up to make up the money by the resorts, a lack of policing on the slopes and a tendency to not "upset the customer", higher speeds on the slopes due to the new techniques associated with "railing" and the higher speeds carves of the 'boarders, the increased MIXING of ability levels on many slopes -- especially lower slopes near lifts but in some instances because of steep bottom slope run outs with folks that can go basically straight with minor course correction and skidding, and finally attitudes of skiers & borders -- although frankly this seems MORE likely to show up in teens to early 20 yr old MALE borders because they are the one's buying the boards and using them...
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Hit by a snowboarder... At least the guy stopped, and certainly the severity of the accident was a freak occurance.
Wondered how long that would take. Does it really matter what gear the person who hit him was on? Does the snowboard make it malicious? Would you have said the same if it was a skier? The guy died, I feel bad for his family and the person who hit him. Lack of ability, bad timing and most likely lack of good judgement were probably all contributing factors here, not the gear.
I ride a motorcyle (Kawasaki Ninja) and have for years. The debate over the safety of motorcycling has raged for years. Numerous positions have been taken, including states mandating helmet use, then repealing that mandate. Stats can be cited both ways, showing motorcyle accident numbers are misleading when based for the smaller number of motorcycles vs cars on the road (ie. motorcyles are really not as dangerous as some would have you believe).
Nonetheless, empirical evidence is a powerful tool, and the number of serious injuries or fatalities you hear about regarding motorcyles, even just among famous people (Roethlisberger, Jason Williams) is telling. The same goes for snowboarding. The debate on both can rage, but empirically, motorcyles and snowboarders just have a way of always being involved in serious accidents...
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Hit by a snowboarder... At least the guy stopped, and certainly the severity of the accident was a freak occurance.
Wondered how long that would take. Does it really matter what gear the person who hit him was on? Does the snowboard make it malicious? Would you have said the same if it was a skier? The guy died, I feel bad for his family and the person who hit him. Lack of ability, bad timing and most likely lack of good judgement were probably all contributing factors here, not the gear.
I ride a motorcyle (Kawasaki Ninja) and have for years. The debate over the safety of motorcycling has raged for years. Numerous positions have been taken, including states mandating helmet use, then repealing that mandate. Stats can be cited both ways, showing motorcyle accident numbers are misleading when based for the smaller number of motorcycles vs cars on the road (ie. motorcyles are really not as dangerous as some would have you believe).
Nonetheless, empirical evidence is a powerful tool, and the number of serious injuries or fatalities you hear about regarding motorcyles, even just among famous people (Roethlisberger, Jason Williams) is telling. The same goes for snowboarding. The debate on both can rage, but empirically, motorcyles and snowboarders just have a way of always being involved in serious accidents...
While empirical data may suggest that, its far from the truth. Thats the problem with empirical data, its only derived from observation or experimentation. The observer may choose to "see" only the things they wish. This is hard data taken from the National Ski Area Association. It shows that skiers are actually involved in more fatalities. http://www.nsaa.org/nsaa/press/0506/facts-about-skiing-and-snowboarding.asp Given, its only data for one season
Thirty of the fatalities were skiers (39 male, 6 female) and 15 of the fatalities were snowboarders (14 male, 1 female). The rate of fatality was .80 per million skier/snowboarder visits.
Serious Injuries - Serious injuries (paraplegics, serious head and other serious injuries) occur at the rate of about 42 per year, according to the NSAA. In the 2004/05 season, there were 45 serious injuries. Twenty-four of these serious injuries were skiers (18 males, 6 females) and 21 were snowboarders (19 males, 2 females). The rate of serious injury in 2004/05 was .80 per million skier/snowboarder visits.
Much like motorcycling, people who simply think snowboarding/boarders are dangerous or don't like them for some reason try to perpetuate those views without reguard to the facts.
My point was, would this guys death be better if a skier hit him? If not, then what's the point of bringing it up other than to make snowboarding seem somehow more dangerous and irresponible?
Btw, I ride too, SV650, so I know from where you speak. Roethlisberger is a moron.
Lets not turn this guy's death into a soapbox for bashing snowboarders vs skiers, helmets vs no helmets. Unfortunately these things can happen. It could just as easily have been a skier, if he had worn a helmet there is no guarantee it would have saved him. You want to do something, go out this weekend and cut a few runs in his memory and keep him in your thoughts and prayers as you do.
i've posted in the past on this so i will again ... especially in light of the recent death @ park city mountain resort a few weeks ago.
first off, i did use to ride a motorcyle in dc back in the day. in 1990 due to bad luck and also going 80 mph on whitehurst freeway i piled-in my honda hurricane. i managed to bring it down to about 50 before laying it down. i was sure i was dead. i walked away from it with some minor internal injures, massive road rash, nerve damage to my right arm, and scars on my face after tumbling in the median strip. my helmet, an open-face italian one, had a crack in it from the forehead location across 2/3 of the hemet, where my head hit stuff as i tumbled. it saved my life.
on the other hand, the skier in park city mountain resort was a very good amateur racer and was training by himself for a d/h race next to the payday lift in the early morning. his wife called when he did not return in the evening. he was found dead in the woods with a cervical dislocation and blunt force trauma. he must have caught and edge and hit a tree. he was wearing a helmet.
i believe that a helmet worn while skiing will give you some protection in case of a hit to the head, but only up to a certain speed. compared to motorcycle helmets, snowsport helmets are pretty weak.
my friend's brother hit a tree last week after going down because of rocks on cloud nine at The Canyons. he was not wearing a helmet. he was unresponsive but breathing on his own. he now is awake, and can talk and recognise people and his brain is not swollen, but who knows what the future will hold.
i think a helmet can help in a low-speed crash to minimize damage, but at higher speeds you will die from a broken neck or simple blunt force trauma. your body carries a lot of kinetic energy and it all loads up on the spinal column or the top of the cranium. if you are going over 20 mph nothing is going to save you. i ski fast and i am aware of this every time i do it.
this is what skiing is about. it ain't playing tennis. it's called risk management. if the guy was wearing a helmet at 7 springs, it probably would not have helped. he hit the padding and sill died. it's just the way it is.
I was impressed that the guy that hit him went to see if he was okay. Leaves the sense that this really was an accident. We'll see as more comes out about the incident.
Crush- good point. I don't wear a helmet. Maybe I should, I'm just stubborn that way. If I ever have kids that might change.
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Hit by a snowboarder... At least the guy stopped, and certainly the severity of the accident was a freak occurance.
The report says he collided with a snowboarder. It later says the family was told he was hit by a snowboarder. I really don't think its worth speculating what precisely happened. The most important and tragic fact is that he died. RIP.
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Lets not turn this guy's death into a soapbox for bashing snowboarders vs skiers, helmets vs no helmets. Unfortunately these things can happen. It could just as easily have been a skier, if he had worn a helmet there is no guarantee it would have saved him. You want to do something, go out this weekend and cut a few runs in his memory and keep him in your thoughts and prayers as you do.
Kennedy, I agree with you completely. I was hesitant to even post anything. Thought about it for several hours today before I did. I waited till someone pointed it out first, even then i was somewhat loath to post. The perpetuation of the skier vs. snowboarder thing is stupid. The media loves it of course, its sensational, it draws people in.
This is a dangerous game we all play. You are kidding yourself if you don't think so. The risks can be minimized but never eliminated. The gear on your feet is not nearly as important as the head on your shoulders.
RIP to our friend from 7 Springs. Be careful out there.
^agreed, particularly since we have little more than hearsay to go on.
That so reads like an abstract of a police report in turn based on a ski patrol report (none of whom saw it).
