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Sugarbush death today

cdskier

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Very sad and tragic. I didn't ski ME this weekend so not sure how the conditions were there. The LP side was in good shape, but it doesn't take much to lose control. Head-on into a tree without a helmet is not something I even want to imagine.
 

bdfreetuna

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Wow, prayers for his family.

Only time I go without a helmet anymore is some spring days when it's slush city and I keep the speeds down. I wonder how confident this poor fella was on the conditions he was skiing?
 

WWF-VT

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Threads like this one suck. I skied the same trail minutes before this incident occurred and knew something was up when it was roped off by patrol. I saw the sled go down the hill and when they loaded the ambulance and it did not leave my heart sank. Very sad news for all .
 

BenedictGomez

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This is sad. Wonder if the firm conditions caused him to lose control. We talked about this in the other thread.

This weekend was a recipe for injuries or far worse. Heavy rain swiftly followed by impressively dropping temperatures on a holiday weekend is as bad as it gets for manufacturing ski accidents.
 

dlague

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Wow, prayers for his family.

Only time I go without a helmet anymore is some spring days when it's slush city and I keep the speeds down. I wonder how confident this poor fella was on the conditions he was skiing?
Same here but more recent years we have been wearing helmets even in the spring. Not so concerned about ourselves but of others. A Basin gets fairly busy between early May to mid June and the crazy diehards are flying down the runs. Especially when things get down for a few trails.

One of our friends sustained a concussion two years ago skiing at Killington in early May when he got taken out on a very nice warm sunny corn snow day. He was wearing a ball cap.

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Whitey

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This weekend was a recipe for injuries or far worse. Heavy rain swiftly followed by impressively dropping temperatures on a holiday weekend is as bad as it gets for manufacturing ski accidents.

You posted before the weekend that you thought this would be a dangerous weekend. Not something that you want to be right about, but you were.

I ski on the hard right or left on weekends like this past one, right on the fringe of the trail and woods. Always have, born and raised northeast skier. Its where the snow gets pushed to and I feel "safer" in a couple of inches of stuff on the side than on the ice sheet in the middle. But this kind of stuff is my greatest fear. Catching an edge or somehow else loosing control and going into the woods/lft pole/snowmaking equip/etc. Helmet or not, not many people walking away from that if you have any speed.
 

tumbler

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This weekend was a recipe for injuries or far worse. Heavy rain swiftly followed by impressively dropping temperatures on a holiday weekend is as bad as it gets for manufacturing ski accidents.

Yes, but I was there all 3 days and the conditions were much better than anticipated. The groomers were able to do much better than I expected. There were some slick spots but not the entire trail.

Very sad indeed, I feel awful for the family but also for the patrollers that tried to resuscitate him and were unsuccessful. That is not something you soon forget.
 
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Obviously I don't know the exact details of how this happened, but based on previous fatal accidents I guess the most likely thing is that the skier lost control / hit a slick patch/ caught an edge and went into a tree. This happens often enough that I am wondering if maybe it's not obvious to people who don't ski that often in these conditions that it's actually one of the most dangerous scenarios in on-trail skiing. I could totally see how someone might think that they would have an opportunity to regain control, especially on a wider slope, when in fact they don't. Here's a case where some kind of safety awareness campaign or something might actually save lives -- I can't think of a succinct message other than "ski in control", though, and that's not exactly it either.
 

dlague

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There has been talk in the industry regarding safety videos prior to skiing. There is fine print on lift tickets and forms for season pass products but this is often not even recognized. Lots of newer skiers have no idea what the Responsibility Code is much less the dangers conditions such might pose.

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freeski

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When it gets slick the response is: get out the race skis and go fast. Not sure if it played a part here, probably not. Always sad when someone dies. But, with three kids horrible.
 

Jully

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I gotta say safety videos before skiing would be a little frustrating to me if I were forced to watch it. However, I can understand why they are pushing for that. I know some mountains require a 5 minute safety thing before going into a park. Anyone know how those worked out?
 

cdskier

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Here's a case where some kind of safety awareness campaign or something might actually save lives -- I can't think of a succinct message other than "ski in control", though, and that's not exactly it either.

Sugarbush (at least on the Super Bravo lift at LP, not sure about ME) has quite a few ski safety reminders on the lift towers...things like "always ski in control", "skiers in front have the right of way", etc.

But to your point, people don't realize how dangerous a groomed trail can truly be if you do happen to lose control. A "Blue square" rating sometimes gives people a false impression that it is automatically safer than something more difficult. I think one of the biggest things that can help is simply awareness that falls can happen to anyone no matter how good you are or what trail you are on. Therefore you should do everything in your power to protect yourself. That includes wearing a helmet. I'm not saying it would have helped in this scenario, but at least it would have had a chance of helping. The question is how do you effectively raise this awareness though and get people to pay attention?
 

deadheadskier

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Only time I go without a helmet anymore is some spring days when it's slush city and I keep the speeds down.

I used to do this. Last year I modified my old helmet by taking all of the padding out around the ears and it's significantly less hot that way than my new helmet. The "spring" helmet is pretty old and dented up due to years of getting whacked by branches while tree skiing, but I figure it's still marginally better than wearing no helmet at all.
 

drjeff

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For all we know in this case, the victim could of been cut off by someone passing at a high rate of speed from behind with no warning, or it could of been the classical "I'll just ski the loose, soft stuff at the side of the trail" and hooked an edge scenario, or just a simple fall in a bad spot, or even some kind of medical issue before the collision with the tree happened..... We just don't know.

Just a tragic event for the family, the patrolers, the Sugarbush crew that I'm sure assisted the patrollers and likely the EMS crew as well. May they all come through this event as well as possible
 
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I'm assuming that the barriers they put up along the sides of trails when racing is underway are meant to catch racers before they go into the woods. Would it be an effective use of limited patroller resources to figure out which slopes get the most high-speed traffic on slick days and temporarily deploy race barriers on those (with occasional gaps so we can get in and out of the woods)? Or would it encourage people to just go faster? (This is kinda like the helmets-vs-head injuries stats I've seen). I don't think this is a real solution but I don't have any great ideas.
 
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For all we know in this case, the victim could of been cut off by someone passing at a high rate of speed from behind with no warning, or it could of been the classical "I'll just ski the loose, soft stuff at the side of the trail" and hooked an edge scenario, or just a simple fall in a bad spot, or even some kind of medical issue before the collision with the tree happened..... We just don't know.

Yeah, getting into the details of what happened here wasn't my intent -- I just think about this kind of accident a lot, especially after that accident at Cannon last year. Just thinking, like, can we maybe suggest some ways of making things even slightly safer (while remembering of course, that this can be an inherently dangerous sport.
 
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