OCR Text |
Show Tragic Accident Claims Life of Young Skier Here Chris Cromwell, an 1 1 -year-old Marsac sixth grader, died February Feb-ruary 17 from a massive concussion concus-sion after hitting a telephone pole head on while night skiing. The pole is about 130 feel from the top of Payday lift, at the top of Widowmakcr run. The accident occurred at about 7:40 p.m. Young Cromwell died almost instantly. The boy's stepbrother, the only eyewitness to the tragedy explained ex-plained to officials that Chris turned to speak to him while skiing and slammed into the pole. Ski Patrolman co-director Bill Plummer said it is unknown how fast the youngster was moving, but speculated he must have been in a tuck or skating to hit so hard. A 15-year-old junior patrol-woman patrol-woman was on the scene almost immediately and administered to padded trees because, "You'd have to pad the whole world." Plu nimer elaborated on this report. "Under the law. Park City resort is doing everything possible pos-sible to make skiing safe. If not for legal and practical problems, we would certainly pad everything every-thing on the mountain. But we wouldn't know where to start and where to slop we can't pad every tree." He went on to explain that a court precedent is developing lor ski areas around the country which makes a resort safer from costly lawsuits if it provides no padding than if it provides limited padding. Park City ski area used to pad poles on steep runs, but lawsuits have been won by skiers 'injured in collisions who claimed they saw some pads and assumed all poles had padding. Although skiing is recognized as a dangerous sport and signs on the mountain and life passes disclaim official liability on the resort's part, high damage claims have been awarded to skiers. Plummer revealed that suits filed by a few people have driven insurance premiums sky high, and resulted in more expensive lift tickets. This syndrome syn-drome also caused ski patrolmen , to stop, adjusting skier's bindings , because of the liability they thus incur. He emphasized, "It's not a matter of laziness or no pads if we had our way, we'd pad anything on which a skier could get hurt." first aid to open an air passage. A full time patrolman appeared quickly. Other mountain safety personnel administered mouth-to-mouth resuciation as the child was transported down the mountain moun-tain on a snow cat. Dr. Richard Williams met the party at the base of the mountain and tried to save the boy's life, but efforts were futile. A helicopter had been called, and Ernie Anderson had the Park City Ambulance warmed up. He transported the body to the University of Utah hospital where a coroner's report" was filed. Mountain officials said the pole was well lighted, and has never been hit before. Cromwell, who was skiing with a group of buddies still on the chairlil't at the time of the accident, had been in Park City, skiing the mountain for a year. The family reportedly moved here primarily to ski. Mountain manager Phil Jones said the incident would not lead |