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Rescuers say an 80-year-old veteran skier is lucky to have escaped with only a broken leg after attempting a two-meter jump at Mount Buller, in Australia. The man was flown to a hospital in Melbourne for treatment after the accident on an advanced ski run yesterday afternoon. Intensive care flight paramedics said the man was given pain relief during the flight. When asked about the attempted jump, the octogenarian replied "Life is too short."
The Wyoming Department of Employment has cited Jackson Hole Mountain Resort for failing to protect ski patroller Kathryn Miller with a helmet when she died in a fall last winter. Miller died of head injuries after falling in Spacewalk Couloir, a steep rock-sided chute at the resort's Rendezvous Mountain permit area in the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
Following an investigation into her death by the state occupational safety and health branch of the employment department, the agency cited the company for "not ensuring the use of head protection to help prevent or reduce the severity of head injuries." The citation could be precedent-setting on a topic - helmet use - that has caught the attention of ski areas nationwide, if not internationally.
The resort does not require its patrollers or other ski workers to wear helmets. The Mountain Resort has issued a statement that it will appeal the citation, arguing there were no policies in place at any ski area in the United States at the time that required ski patrols to wear protective headgear. The resort spokesperson declined to provide information on the fine levied against the resort.
The department of employment issued the citation following a routine investigation of a workplace death. Miller fell on March 19 while on duty and checking out ski conditions with another patroller at the out-of-bounds run.
The resort told the local paper following the accident that Miller was not wearing a helmet. Company policy is to encourage employees to investigate the potential benefits of helmets, officials said at the time. At the preliminary appeals meeting with the state agency, the Mountain Resort will argue that no ski resorts in the country required employees to wear helmets at the time of Miller's death.
The National Ski Area Association confirms the assertion that at the time of Kathryn Miller's accident, of the 400-plus ski areas in the United States, none required employees to wear helmets. But there have been changes in the months since Miller's death. In April, Vail Resorts announced it would make helmets mandatory for all employees skiing or riding on the job beginning with the 2009-10 winter season. See Helmets for Vail Employees Required.
The policy will be put in place at all five of the company's resorts: Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Heavenly. The policy also requires children ages 12 and under, who participate in a group lesson, to wear a helmet.
According to a study released by the National Ski Areas Association in June, 48 percent of skiers and boarders use helmets, up from 43 percent the year before. The association promotes the use of helmets, although the effectiveness of the head gear is a frequent topic for debate. The use of helmets continues to be a contentious subject in the ski industry, brought to the front pages following the death of actress Natasha Richardson on March 18 after a fall on a beginners' slope at Mount Tremblant, Quebec. She was not wearing a helmet.
The family of a teenage boy killed in a 2005 avalanche on Mount Charleston recently settled a wrongful death lawsuit against the Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort.
The lawsuit, brought by the family of 13-year-old Allen Brett Hutchison, alleged that the resort ignored warnings of the danger of an avalanche on the day Hutchison was killed. An avalanche swept Hutchison off a ski lift on Jan. 9, 2005, and buried him under two to four feet of snow. Rescue crews searched for Hutchison for more than six hours before they recovered his body. He died from asphyxia.
A federal investigation into the avalanche later found multiple safety violations at the Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort, including failure to comply with its own avalanche control plan on the day Hutchison was killed. Details of the June settlement between Hutchison's family and the defendants remain confidential. But both sides confirmed that a settlement was reached, effectively bringing an end to the lawsuit. The case was scheduled to go to trial in April 2010. The Hutchisons sued the resort in early 2006. The lawsuit accuses the resort of ignoring avalanche warnings in order to save money and sought more than $70,000 in damages.
Representatives of the Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort said that the resort undertook new safety measures after Hutchison's death, including the hiring of two safety experts to assess how to control avalanches. It also implemented a weather reporting station at the top of the chair lift Hutchison was riding at the time of the avalanche. The resort also now uses a 1943 Army howitzer to induce avalanches as a means to control them.
The Hutchison family had moved to Las Vegas from Northern California about two years before the tragic accident. On the day of the incident, Huthcison had gone snowboarding at Mount Charleston with his mother and 15-year-old sister.
He boarded a ski lift about 3 p.m. A 10- to 20-foot wave of snow swept over Hutchison and buried him. His sister was not with him at the time. The U.S. Forest Service investigated Hutchison's death and safety protocols on the mountain in the aftermath of the fatality. It found that the Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort didn't deter skiers from entering the avalanche area, as required by emergency procedures.