7 Springs skier dies after hitting head on rock

[legalskier]

More bad news.

*** [36 year old] David McClelland, of Coraopolis, died Monday night when he lost control and entered a rocky, wooded area....Friends and neighbors said McClelland was a nice person who enjoyed the outdoors. "He liked sports. I always saw him with his snow gear. It's very sad," said neighbor Rebecca Smith. "It's just devastating." ***
Story: http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/local/36-year-old-killed-skiing-accident-7-springs/nHLPq/

No mention whether he was wearing a helmet.

R.I.P.

 

[BenedictGomez]

Are more people dieing this year on the slopes, or are Azoner's just really efficient at finding them all? I'm hoping it's the latter. Stay safe out there folks.


EDIT: Did some research. Apparently he was skiing at a "high rate of speed" on a beginner trail called Fawne Lane and "willingly left the trail" for the woods and hit his head. He was not wearing a helmet (who knows if it would have mattered or not?).

 

[deadheadskier]

Are more people dieing this year on the slopes, or are Azoner's just really efficient at finding them all? I'm hoping it's the latter. Stay safe out there folks.

I don't think it's as much the efficiency of AZers finding the information as it is the efficiency in which news information gets spread in general. Pretty much every online newspaper allows people to "Share" stories on Facebook or "Tweet" the link to the story. Most all news stories are spread immediately following publication by those means. That really didn't exist even 2 years ago. It existed, but wasn't as rampantly adopted my the masses as it is now.

Considering the question, I'm curious how legalskier received word of this tragedy.

RIP David McClelland

 

[drjeff]

Considering that in a typical year per the NSAA (National Ski Areas Association) there are about 40 ski/boarding deaths per year in the US. If you want to make the assumption of basically a 6 month ski season (and argueably just a 3 to 4 month ski season for a HUGE percentage of the skiing/riding public) that works out to over 1 death per week nationwide on average. I don't think that this season is seeing more deaths on the slopes than usual, it may be that we're spending less time talking about great powder days and hence are paying more attention to any on hill related news

 

[Nick]

Yeah I was thinking, this season so far has been the year of horrible deaths / tragic news / no snow. WTF.