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Resort Death Statistics

2K views 17 replies 7 participants last post by  Synathidy 
#1 ·
The Summit Daily posted an interesting series about skier deaths at resorts. The focus is mostly on Colorado, but it is also a good look at how the industry treats this as a whole. Argo had made some interesting comments about skier deaths in a previous thread and this article seems to hit on some of his points.

Overall, it doesn't really change my mind about anything. I would not avoid any of the resorts because of what is reported.

Food for thought at least.

Check it out: Colorado ski deaths since 06/07 season | SummitDaily.com
 
#2 ·
This stuff is sad to read. For the heck of it I was just looking at the ones for Copper since we visited there this season. Out of the 11, only 2 did not have helmets. A couple of them happened on trails I really enjoyed also.

Here on the East Coast we had a few just this season, including one weekend where there was 2. Most of them tend to be caused by icy conditions, causing people to lose control and hit a tree or trees. We had a few particularly dangerous weekends where mid-week it was warming up and raining and the weekend the temps were dropping way down causing a lot of icing issues. Days and weekends like that can be dangerous and a bit scary depending on the place and the conditions.
 
#3 ·
I'd be curious to see what the number of deaths of people going to/from the mountain is in their cars.

Living is dangerous. Look at the poor college kid from Chicago who was volunteering at a college track and field event and got killed by someone doing the hammer throw.
 
#6 ·
I guess there's a fine line between covering it up and not advertising it. Until people who start to ask questions start to disappear none of this really upsets me.

At least in this area whenever someone is killed or lifestar'd out its all over the news. To some extent I can understand their hesitance, as you say in 95% of cases its just that sometimes things happen and the resort did nothing wrong or even everything right. So why draw the attention. I think that the numbers can all be obtained through public records if you're inclined to look for them.
 
#7 ·
Since that thread a year or 2 ago I have seen a couple articles come out and touch on the subject of getting the actual number of deaths. A couple pf members here were so adamantly opposed to what I was saying that I didnt care to continue on the topic. I dont really think you can argue facts, once they are available. I just happened to see for myself the reality of it and what is actually reported is a dumbed down number.

I dont care what it is, I just think its better for it to be known and get to the top killer to possibly resolve some of them. I'm going to snowboard either way.

I think its good that some people are starting to dig in to it a bit more to get the real numbers, of possible. I'm in the camp that if someone has a major trauma while skiing or snowboarding, dies a month later intubated in the icu after they are medivac home, its a statistical death in that group. Not some other cause....
 
#8 ·
I guess my perspective of it all is that in the end its just a number. People don't think about starting the sport and say, 'you know what? I'm going to look at deaths and if its over 126 I'm not going to start'.

130 is meaningless to me without something to rationalize it, be it #visits , hours on the mountain, chicken baskets served from the cafeteria, whatever. And at some point to me it becomes as meaningful as the # deaths / 100k miles driven. Looks impressive on paper, but how does it really allow you to understand whether its an issue or not.

To Argos point statistics are always nice to trying to determine cause and address. I'll agree here, but the industry does see what is happening. 30 years ago there wasn't a helmet on the mountain. And I'd say head injury data was just as hard to get then as deaths are today.
 
#12 ·
I would agree person to person is probably #1 . The vast majority of people never encounter a tree well, or even go through a wooded area, they stick to groomers. Heck, on the east coast there is no thing as a tree well, or avalanche issue (with a few exceptions). Yet at Mohawk in CT with its whopping 650' vertical there was a death after collision. Of course listening to the old timers talk about it it was more a murder by snowboarder.
 
#16 ·
When you come out west where we have deep snowpack its warned everywhere. Tree wells and deep snow warnings are posted on resort websites and signage. There are also numerous warnings about trying to make people aware of the danger of hitting trees.

I think, just like everything, it has to be taught in the beginning of a persons learning process. I stop and yell at instructors teaching pupils to stop blocking whole trails in bad places or in blind spots, that how people die. Great, its the guy uphills fault but your still dead or seriously injured. By the time people are a few days into it and have been taught to have a shit attitude, they just get pissed rather than get the point.. its usually a skier teaching the bad habits/attitudes unfortunately, I have run into a few snowboarding instructors teaching bad habits too as well as teaching bad attitudes towards skiers..

It always amazes me how many snowboarders took out skiers, according to the skier reports while laying in the hospital waiting for us to fix them. I always assumed our surgeons were riding around taking people out to drum up business. Lol
 
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