Another tragedy: accident at Loon

[snowmonster]

Saw this first in Metro Boston this morning. Picked up the story from Northeastern's online student newspaper. It's sad.

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An 18-year-old student was killed Saturday after a tubing accident at a Resident Student Association (RSA) Conference at Loon Mountain in Lincoln, N.H.

Adrienne Devino, a freshman communications major, died at Speare Hospital in Plymouth, N.H. after hitting a tree and suffering injuries to her chest, torso and side, said Northeastern Director of Communications Fred McGrail. Members of RSA were the first to reach Devino and notified authorities, he said.

"The Northeastern community is deeply saddened by the death of Adrienne Devino," McGrail said. " The community extends our heartfelt symphathy to Adrienne's family and to her many friends."

About 50 students returned from the weekend RSA trip today and met with counselors and staff at University Health and Counseling Services, McGrail said. Counselors also met with residents from Devino's floor in Stetson East and are available to all students who need assistance, he said.

More details will be published in Wednesday's issue of The News.

 

[MRGisevil]

That's just horrible

 

[thetrailboss]

Sorry to hear that for the family and Loon.

Hopefully Loon had closed the tubing liability loophole. The NH Supreme Court held last year that the Skier/Rider's Assumption of Risk language DID NOT COVER tubing. Ragged was involved in that suit...probably part of the reason why Ragged is no more.

 

[tcharron]

I've never seen their tubing park, but I'm curious.

How exactly does one go at high speeds into a tree? Nearly all of the tubing parks I've seen have nicely laid out 'channels', no where near trees.

Certainly tragic, tho..

Who was it that was complaining about news coverage of Ski area acidents being too light?

 

[snowmonster]

Sorry to hear that for the family and Loon.

Hopefully Loon had closed the tubing liability loophole. The NH Supreme Court held last year that the Skier/Rider's Assumption of Risk language DID NOT COVER tubing. Ragged was involved in that suit...probably part of the reason why Ragged is no more.

Hi trailboss. Time to put our legal minds together. Seems that subsequent legislation in NH included tubing as part of the assumption of risk. The full story in the Globe alluded to the Ragged case and the following legislation: http://www.boston.com/news/local/ne...d_on_slopes_during_university_sponsored_trip/

On a related note, the same edition of the Globe referred to an incident at Dartmouth in '04. Seems that the parents of the deceased went forward with the suit: http://www.boston.com/news/local/ne..._dartmouth_ski_accident_that_killed_daughter/

I take my class out to Sunapee every year and exposure to liability like this makes me re-think the trip. Anyway, all these underscore the fact that we're still engaged in a dangerous sport. Be safe out there. No matter how skilled we can get, nature still has the upper hand.

 

[Skier75]

That's so sad to have her life end tragically at such a young age. My condolences goes out to her family.

 

[thetrailboss]

Hi trailboss. Time to put our legal minds together. Seems that subsequent legislation in NH included tubing as part of the assumption of risk. The full story in the Globe alluded to the Ragged case and the following legislation: http://www.boston.com/news/local/ne...d_on_slopes_during_university_sponsored_trip/

NH Legislature probably did update the statute because of the SC decision...

 

[dcarbs]

The Tubing Park zig zags and goes down the snubber trail, which is off of the little sister lift, I think it would be very hard for someone to go over the edge, but if they did it would be very bad

 

[snowmonster]

Trailboss, you're right. The legislation covered the carve out on tubing made in the court decision.

Dcarbs, the Boston.com article mentioned that the course was iced up at the time that the student went tubing.

 

[SnowRider]

I was there last weekend and I am sure someone could go over.

Edges were maybe 2 feet with no lanes. In the morning it was iced and looked super fast. Some places the barrier had worn down.

Another possibility is at the bottom is makes a slight curve then a sharp one. Maybe at the slight curve he just launched off it???

Its always sad to hear someone at that age has died:-(

 

[SnowRider]

tubing park is now closed...have to do with the accident?

 

[AMAC2233]

The tubing park is on the Little Sister trail which is a relitively flat, very strait trail. I can not see how this could have happened, often the tubes do not even gain enough speed to remain moving the entire trail. Also, each side is (or was) lined with tall, orange fencing to prevent a wrong turn. The tubing park is located on the immediate trail to the left, on the skier's left. You can see how gentle the slope is: (Sorry for the poor quality)

This is not a great picture but it at least shows the flatness of the trail.

 

[SteveFoy]

How could Loon not be liable? Can they claim the person tubing did not use excercise reasonable control and judgement??? Or maybe just claim the person was dumb enough to buy a ticket to a dangerous snow tube park? This is totally different from skiing or snowboarding where the person can control their actions. When snowtubing you are at the mercy of the operator and/or designer of the park. Short of claiming an act of God, I don't see how the ski area can claim they are not liable in this situation. It wouldn't work if I was sitting on the jury.

 

[thetrailboss]

How could Loon not be liable? Can they claim the person tubing did not use excercise reasonable control and judgement??? Or maybe just claim the person was dumb enough to buy a ticket to a dangerous snow tube park? This is totally different from skiing or snowboarding where the person can control their actions. When snowtubing you are at the mercy of the operator and/or designer of the park. Short of claiming an act of God, I don't see how the ski area can claim they are not liable in this situation. It wouldn't work if I was sitting on the jury.

There is some assumption of risk when you partake in these kinds of activities.

Admittedly we don't know all the facts, but this POV is why lift tickets and insurance rates get higher and higher each year.

 

[SteveFoy]

Sure, there are inherent dangers in snow tubing- bumps an bruises from racing down a track on a bouncing tube. You might even fall off and bang your head. But flying off the track and into a tree is not supposed to be one of the dangers. What if the cable snapped on the tram at Cannon and dozens of people fell to their death? And it was determined the cable was old and suffered from fatigue which caused it to snap. Is that one of the inherent dangers of skiing? I am a strong believer in personal responsibility. But in these examples the personal responsibility lies with the ski operator not the customer.

 

[thetrailboss]

Sure, there are inherent dangers in snow tubing- bumps an bruises from racing down a track on a bouncing tube. You might even fall off and bang your head. But flying off the track and into a tree is not supposed to be one of the dangers. What if the cable snapped on the tram at Cannon and dozens of people fell to their death? And it was determined the cable was old and suffered from fatigue which caused it to snap. Is that one of the inherent dangers of skiing? I am a strong believer in personal responsibility. But in these examples the personal responsibility lies with the ski operator not the customer.

I think that the analogy you make is a not accurate. Any one who snowtubes has SOME control of their tube...that's why they tell you to use your feet to slow down, etc.

Besides that, you're making assumptions about what happened. Were you there? A million things could have happened. She could have not followed directions or been under the influence of drugs. To assume out of the gate that the worst case happened is the reason why you would be kicked off a jury in voir dire anyway....

 

[jaywbigred]

Asking "were you there" and saying "a million things could have happened" seems inappropriate here. To allege that she might not have followed directions or that she was under the influence of drugs seems a waste and slight slander of a dead young person; contributory negligence is not an absolute defense to liability in New Hampshire, as NH follows a Modified Comparative Fault rule. This means that a plaintiff can recover for her injuries caused by the negligence of another party even if they contributed to those injuries, so long as their degree of contribution/fault is 49% or less. Of course, their recovery of damages will also be reduced as a result of their contribution.

So let's say if she followed all directions and was not under the influence of any substances and did everything by the book, the mountain would be 100% liable.

Let's say she messed up some of the directions and was intoxicated. Would that make her more than 49% at fault? Once you are on the tube, to what degree are you at the mercy of the tubing facility, and to what degree do you have control of the tube? In my experience, you have almost no control of the tube; maybe 10% you, 90% the mountain. I'd say 25%-you, 75% the mountain would be generous. That means even if she completely blew her responsibility, she could only be 25% liable as to the outcome of her trip down the course, and the mountain would still be considerably liable.

I hate when people start talking about torts and expressing the view that litigation and liability questions themselves serve to raise insurance rates and prices of items. That is not true; the biggest issue with our legal system stems from arbitrary and astronomic JURY awards in cases where the Defendant is rightfully at fault.

The solution is not to find Defendants to be fault free all the time or to change the laws to make them less liable; the solution is to reel in juries to reasonable levels, or perhaps cap awards, so that insurers and the insured have some cost certainty year-to-year.

Unfortunately for the mountain, this case is already in the press and an 18 year old college girl with her whole life ahead of her makes for a bad scenario in terms of jury awards. They would be smart to settle this one quickly and quietly.

 

[thetrailboss]

Just some comments and then a segue to something else...

Asking "were you there" and saying "a million things could have happened" seems inappropriate here. To allege that she might not have followed directions or that she was under the influence of drugs seems a waste and slight slander of a dead young person.

First off to be clear, explicitly clear here, there was no intent to slander anyone. Sorry if you got that impression.

The discussion regarding what a jury would do was brought up by Mr. Foy, who said out of the gate that the mountain was liable. My comments are regarding what a jury is supposed to do: and that is give a fair shake to both sides and view the evidence in a fair way. My comments are not to second guess, criticize, or ridicule anyone. They are meant to indicate that there are other factors that may have played a role. We don’t know what happened. We’re not going to go there at this point.

I hate when people start talking about torts and expressing the view that litigation and liability questions themselves serve to raise insurance rates and prices of items.

That was not the view that I expressed.

With that said, our sympathies go to the family. As for Loon, this sucks.

 

[jaywbigred]

It kind of was, no?

Admittedly we don't know all the facts, but this POV is why lift tickets and insurance rates get higher and higher each year.

Anyway, here's to hoping that the evidence is properly weighed, that justice is served, that the family gets some closure, and that Loon gets through the ordeal healthy too.

 

[tree_skier]

So let's say if she followed all directions and was not under the influence of any substances and did everything by the book, the mountain would be 100% liable.


I hate when people start talking about torts and expressing the view that litigation and liability questions themselves serve to raise insurance rates and prices of items. That is not true;

Well that is true. Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

Lets say I am tubing at Big Moose Mountain and am following all the rules and am not under the influence of any leagal/illeagal drugs and a moose runs out falls on me and kills me. by your above statement the mountain is 100% responsible. How crazy is that. Not knowing any facts but she hit a tree my vote is any lawsuit would be frivolous and cause an unnecessary increase in the price of tickets and or other service.