21 y/o dies at Breck, first time skiing

dave44

dave44

Active member


Quoted here is a bit from the article:

Billy had never skied before and talked about taking a lesson, but decided he would try out his rental gear first and see how comfortable he felt before signing up with an instructor. He, Christy and another friend headed to Peak 8, where they hopped on the lift to the beginner ski trails.

Billy, an athlete who regularly rollerbladed, played hockey or rode his bike, felt like he was beginning to get the hang of the new sport.

He elected not to sign up for a lesson, a decision that would later gnaw at his grieving parents.

At 2:10 that afternoon, Billy was skiing on the green Park Lane trail under the two-person Chair 5 - his third run of the day - when he somehow lost control, hit the snow and tumbled into the trees.

Christy had been skiing ahead of him and didn't see the accident. She was waiting at the bottom of the lift and started to worry after about five minutes .

After about 10 or 15 minutes of waiting and "freaking out," she saw ski patrol bringing someone down the mountain in a sled.

"I was hoping that it wasn't him. I kind of had a feeling that it could be him I just didn't know if he had gotten stuck or ..." Christy said trailing off.

A friend waiting with Christy went to check with the patrollers and reported back that she thought it was indeed Billy. An employee of the ski resort confirmed that Billy had been hurt.

At the medical center, Christy frantically called Billy's mom, Melinda. There had been an accident and Billy was injured, she said, but nobody would tell her what was going on.

The McDonnels knew from the phone call it was bad situation, but they could never guess the worst had happened: Their first-born and only son had died in a horrible accident.

Nobody's sure exactly what happened. Two witnesses reported seeing a puff of snow. Bill McDonnel heard that his son may have launched off a bump before colliding with the hard snow surface.

the rest of the article is here:

http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070625/NEWS/106250050/0/FRONTPAGE
 
wow thats terrible... this winter at my mountain in southwest new york, peek n peek, this kid that was mentally handicapped from a concussion was snowboarding sans helmet and fell and died... its shitty
 
i think this kid was from the charlotte area where i live. they kept talking about a young dude who died. thats sad but people like that need to be careful
 
that's awful. Whoever wrote that article needs to take the magnitude of the situation into account next time, it's written like it's some non-fiction suspense novel.
 
The story how billy died...................

Yo I saw this shit happen from the lift with durtschi, We saw this guy just straight lining this green line all gapered out and out of control. At the time I was laughing my ass off because I Knew he was going to eat shit, But he actually stayed up for awhile, he started gaining alot of speed, and instead of stopping towards the middle of the run he stopped by vereing towards the trees. I saw him fall and hit the trees at a very High speed, and I knew he was dead. It made me very sad to see that, The ski potrol was pumping on his chest the next lift ride and the next day I read that he had indeed died in the breck paper.

RIP Billy
 
yeah it wasnt really an article that writer made it more of a story. id be kind of upset about the article too. i feel bad for that guy though...
 
RIP from me too.

damn. so crazy how u saw it youself...and that article is like some story novel....
 
yah i saw it too...i scan at peak 8 and saw when ski patrol brought the kid down the were giving him cpr on the way down the mountain in the sled..pretty fucked up
 
damn RIP. i have never heard of a first time skier dying. Its probly cuz we was a good athlete. Most people would have fallen down before they could get up that kind of speed.
 
RIP, super sad

this stuff is happening too much lately, my friends dad was a ski patrol at pc and at the end of the season he had the same type of thing happen:

Jan 26 '07- A 49 year-old man, Brett Pendleton, sustained fatal injuries Wednesday while skiing at Park City Mountain Resort. He was reported as a missing person to Park City Mountain Resort Patrol at approximately 4:40 p.m. They responded to the call and found him located near the PayDay run at approximately 4:47 p.m. Patrol stabilized him at the scene before transporting him to Base Patrol. He was then taken by ambulance to the University of Utah hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah where he was later pronounced dead.

Circumstances surrounding Pendleton's death were not released.
 
i hate these things rip

if he wasnt that great of an athlete he probably wouldve not been so confident and couldve been alive right now
 
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