DENVER (KDVR) — January is skier safety month and the goal is to promote skier and rider responsibility and encourage everyone on the mountain to be safe and use common sense on the slopes.
Collisions with serious injuries and even deaths happen on Colorado mountains each year.
The Colorado Department of Health did a study in 2018. Collision cases in Colorado comprise about 5% of all skier injuries and so that means that there are about 640 skier collision injuries in Colorado.
During a regular season, that’s about five each day.
“Some require a trip to the to ski patrol sometimes that’s all the medical care they get and others, of course, are taken to an emergency room and others in that group are then hospitalized, and that’s the most serious injuries. It can involve severe orthopedic injuries, head injuries, lacerations,” ski injury attorney Jim Chalat said.
Some cases are so severe they create lasting trauma.
“PTSD is a psychological problem whether physical impairments, which restrict the trajectory of their lives,” Chalat said.
Eldora has had its fair share of deadly collisions.
“Any ski area, any year sees accidents. And you know, we’re certainly not immune, but safety’s something that we talk about every day all day,” Sam Bass, spokesperson for Eldora Ski Area said.
So far this season at Eldora two people have died at the ski area a week apart.
In one instance in December a skier hit a tree and died. Just a week earlier, an expert ski coach was hit by a snowboarder and killed.
In March 2021 a teenager and a 26-year-old both died after crashing into trees.
“We have an initiative that we introduced this year, called our how you ride initiative,” Bass said “Basically an easy way to remember a great way to approach safety on the slopes anytime you step on snow. So we ask that people consider the factors that they can’t control, which are the conditions, the trees, and the people, they’re on the slope, and then the things that you can control, which is your speed and your behavior.”
Eldora has posted safety messages all over the mountain hoping to catch the attention of skiers of all ages.
“You’re in a natural environment and you’re around other people. And it’s a game of physics and you are responsible for controlling the way you behave on the slopes,” Bass said.
Chalat said most injury collisions happen on blue and green runs; they are wide open and people can pick up more speed.
“The principal question in the courtroom for all these cases is who has the upper hand skewed was the downhill skier and that includes questions of what was the view that the uphill skier had downhill of the skier below,” Chalat said.
Snowboarders often get a bad rap for being more reckless, but Chalat said the statistics are evenly split on whether skiers or boarders are more at fault for collisions.