Snowboarder Not Guilty of Assault in Snowmass Collision
By Rocky Thompson on October 26th, 2011
Photo by Werdna
While taking a run on break an employee at Snowmass hit a blind roller and then hit a 7-year-old. The child was treated for bruises and released from the hospital, and the 22-year-old liftie was held at the scene by the father until ski patrol arrived. He would eventually be charged with reckless endangerment and third-degree assault, both of which would return not-guilty verdicts by a jury in Aspen.
The liftie didn’t testify on his own behalf, though the ski patrol supervisor said the roller with a blind landing is widely known at the hill. The liftie’s lawyer said it was an unfortunate accident, which is of course true, but it’s also true that if his client had slowed down it wouldn’t have been a problem. The father wasn’t helped by the video he had of the incident that had him screaming, “F— you, motherf—er! I’m gonna kill you!” Though I think we can cut him some slack as his kid was just run over by a resort employee. Was it an accident? Yes. Was it mostly the liftie’s fault? Sure, who else are you going to blame, the kid for learning how to ski on a blue run at Snowmass?
Tags: resort, Skiing, Snowboarding
Colorado law says (rightfully so) that folks who ski/ride understand it is a dangerous activity and, as such, by using the resort, they are releasing the resort and folks using the resort from legal activity - assuming it’s not blatantly intentional. Suing over bruises in that situation seems…excessive.
As a parent with kids your can’t imagine the rage you feel when you kid gets run over, with that said mine was run over on a green by a boarder trying to weave around people and go fast.
Best thing you can do is shadow your kid 10-20 feet behind them constantly looking for danger uphill, same year I had an out of control skier hit me so hard they blew the straps open on my snowboard bindings. My 7 year old was 10 feet in front of me and might have been killed.
The take-away for me? Don’t let dad make me wait. If injuries are not serious, leave the scene. If they are serious, you have a more difficult moral decision to make.
Interesting mix of responsibility. I definitely agree that you assume a level of risk just by being on the hill. When i stop, i always make a conscious effort to make sure i’m visible to those who might come down toward me.
If you stand in a blind spot, you should EXPECT to get hit. Then again, how much responsibility can we hold a 7-year-old accountable for? Not much. In this case i’d say the father is about equally at fault with the snowboarder. That’s probably why he was so mad, he was mad at his own parenting failure.
Yeah, being on the slopes is dangerous. However there should be some liability paid by ‘teh stupid’ otherwise they will never learn. Maybe that liability would be the resort employee gets beaten by the father, but then the twerp would sue for assault.
The problem is all the jags that are flat-out reckless. Dangerous is one thing, but irresponsible is another. Keystone is particularly treacherous as the trails aren’t grouped as well as places like Breck and Copper. On Breck/Copper the terrain groups well and there are large areas of green slopes and blue slopes. Meaning those of equal skill level ski more together. On Keystone the trails frequently merge/mix meaning you can have some douchebag snowboarder/skiier come screaming off one trail and plow through a bunch of greenhorns.
Nevertheless, there is always a reckless skiier/snowboarder out there just like there are reckless drivers. Some people just lack basic respect/common sense. Typically males between 18-25…but that’s in the brainwaves. Everybody in that demographic thinks they are indestructable.
Dad should have keep his son in plain sight not at the bottom of a blind roller.
Rocky, please tell me you have a link to the video of the Dad freaking out
The dad should have just punched him in the ribs, then they would have avoided a trial.