A 69-year-old Vail ski instructor has died after he was found unresponsive on the ski area’s Born Free run Dec. 28.
The man was transported to Vail Heath Hospital and then to Denver Health, where he died days later.
“This is a challenging loss for our resort, our community, and especially our ski and snowboard school team. We share in your heartbreak, and we are sending our deepest sympathies to the employee’s family and to those who knew him best,” Greg Willis, Vail Mountain senior director of skier services, said in an emailed statement, which did not identify the instructor by name.
The ski instructor’s death marks the third on-mountain fatality for a Vail Resorts employee since 2021.
Scott Lewis, a 53-year-old zipline guide at the company’s Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont, was killed on Sept. 23, 2021, when riding on the resort’s zipline. Christian Helger, a 29-year-old ski patroller at Park City Mountain Resort, died Jan. 2, 2023, when a tree fell on the cable of the Short Cut lift he was riding and ejected him into a ravine where he suffocated in deep snow.
Both deaths resulted in citations and fines by the Vermont and Utah Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Utah investigators noted that several trees were removed from the Short Cut lift corridor the day before. The lift was delayed in opening Jan. 1 while employees cut down a tree that had fallen on the lift cable. The Utah Labor Commission fined Vail Resorts $2,500 for workplace hazards.
Vermont’s OSHA investigators in March 2022 issued Vail Resorts two citations for “serious” violations that included using worn equipment that should have been retired and failure to properly train employees on the use of personal protection equipment. The administration fined Vail Resorts $27,306 for the violations.
A Vermont investigator found that lanyards connecting riders to the zipline trolley were five years old with “evidence of excessive aging” and should have been replaced.
“In my personal opinion, this tragic, regrettable employee fatality was entirely avoidable. In what appears to me to be an effort to reduce costs, Vail Resorts had knowledge of, but willfully did not comply with OSHA regulations,” wrote Michael Barker in his March 2022 report to Vermont OSHA officials. The family of Lewis in November filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Vail Resorts.
The Vail ski instructor was skiing on Born Free, an intermediate run, before the mountain opened. Ski instructors are allowed to take early runs before meeting with ski school guests, a perk known as “milk runs.” Vail ski patrollers responded and conducted life-saving efforts around 8:35 a.m. on Dec. 28.
There were at least 17 deaths at Colorado ski areas in the 2022-23 season. Ski resorts are not required to report deaths. The numbers reported by The Colorado Sun are the result of annual surveys of coroners in the 16 Colorado counties with ski areas.
Deaths of ski area employees are rare in Colorado. On Dec. 28, 2017, lift mechanic Adam Lee, 40, was killed while working on a surface lift at Loveland ski area. OSHA in May 2018 fined Loveland more than $64,673 for 15 workplace violations the administration found in its investigation.
The ski patrol director at Wolf Creek ski area was killed in an avalanche Nov. 22, 2010, which resulted in a $17,000 fine from OSHA. And Colin Sutton, a senior patroller at Wolf Creek, was killed in an avalanche while working outside the ski area boundary March 4, 2014. The administration fined the ski area $14,000 for failing to adequately mitigate avalanche hazards and, following Sutton’s death, the resort’s owner pleaded guilty to a permitting violation.
Aspen Skiing Co. was fined $12,000 by OSHA in 2008 after the death of an unhelmeted snowmaking employee who crashed his snowmobile into a tree and was not found until the next morning. OSHA’s investigation into the Dec. 30, 2012, avalanche death of Snowmass ski patroller Patsy Hileman, who was skiing in a permanently closed area of Snowmass when she was swept over a cliff, cleared Aspen Skiing Co. of any wrongdoing.