Mt Bachelor being sued over death of 9yr old

[Andy Mink]

Isn't there some case involving a high level pro MTN biker dude who was seriously injured when he lost control of his whip and hit a trail sign? He sued the place and I think he won..

That was Mt. Hood and they closed the entire bike park. The contention was the sign was on a 4x4, not a breakaway post. The park's contention was he crashed first and that's when he was hurt (paraplegic) and then hit the sign. That one has more merit because apparently the mountain didn't follow best practices and/or regulations for signage. It's too bad the entire place was shut down.

 

[snwbrdr]

MSN

Can't be any icier than an East Coast resort. Was it actual ice, or was it just hard packed on the trail?

 

[Tricia]

Isn't there some case involving a high level pro MTN biker dude who was seriously injured when he lost control of his whip and hit a trail sign? He sued the place and I think he won..

Yes, as noted by slowrider.

Mount Hood Skibowl bans mountain bikes after losing multi-million dollar lawsuit

A cyclist settled with the ski resort for $10.5 million after he slammed into a signpost and became paralyzed from the waist down.

www.kgw.com

 

[Tricia]

Can't be any icier than an East Coast resort. Was it actual ice, or was it just hard packed on the trail?

I've experienced east coast ice and I've skied this run.
It was really firm with chicken heads when we skied it.
It wasn't like it was groomed with a zamboni.
I've skied better snow in the east but I've also skied firmer conditions in the east.

 

[Bill Miles]

Further to my previous replay about not finding the online docket, I found it:

https://webportal.courts.oregon.gov/portal/Home/WorkspaceMode?p=0

Seems to indicate that suit was filed August 2, but not yet served on Powdr/Bachelor. No idea if that is correct or why.

 

[raytseng]

When I took risk management courses some of the things they emphasized were (keeping in mind this is for a motocross track)

• Build the track features with safe landings and don't have man made obstacles that could cause bodily harm
• Don't "over sign"

The bit about not over signing things is a bit counter intuitive, but every time a business starts to put signs up taking responsibility out of the hands of the participant they are taking on a bit of liability as well.

If you go into the history of automotive safety, there are some analogies and lots of academic study on this.

I take Tricia's post to be about the effect that Human nature will counterintuitively negate any safety feature due to the safety benefit itself; not just the "sign" literally causing the injury as mentioned in the Mt Hood case.
Before you file this under the simple hot-garbage-take of "safety belts kill more people then they save" or as applied to skiing: "helmets cause more injuries due to reckless behavior"; there are numbers behind this.
From podcasts I've listened too, IIRC in the realm of auto safety research they went over safety improvements and usually about 40-60% of any safety benefit goes away due to behavior changes resulting from the safety feature itself. I take those numbers as you don't really lose all the safety benefits; but it is certainly a "2 steps forward; 1 step back" situation.
You can go down the rest of the hours of podcasts and the rabbit hole of behavioral science to explain reasons why this might be: as habitualization /dependence or safety feature or human evolutionary brain capacity to keep track all relevant "risk/dangers" at the forefront. They will do a much better explanation than I can muster, but I will just leave it that the numbers seem to be what they are, and go have a listen if you like.

Cue the sarcastic historical suggestion that the best auto safety feature would be to mount a spike to the center of all steering wheel to save lives; (although the stats in reverse would say this would still cause 50% more deaths than it would effectively save).

Before people mount their high horses that it's only idiots that are texting in their lane-assisted cruisecontrol/autodrive car; an eye-turning alternative example is if you ever stuck your arm or leg in an elevator door to counting on the elevator safety to stop it, you are no different than those same "idiots".

 

[crgildart]

Can't be any icier than an East Coast resort. Was it actual ice, or was it just hard packed on the trail?

Happens more on the ice coast but thaw and refreeze or sleet can happen anywhere.. Sounds like the terrain in question gets windblown pretty constantly. Manmade thaw refrozen is usually nastier than natural refrozen though.. There are people posting here who skied that run that morning before the accident. Also 2nd hand accounts from others posting about the conditions that day. I'll go with their observations.

 

[newfydog]

Can't be any icier than an East Coast resort. Was it actual ice, or was it just hard packed on the trail?

See my earlier post. The ice there can be on occasion magnificent Glazed, polished, hard, and equal to anything I've seen in the east or on an injected world cup race hill. Normally they leave it open for those who like to ski that stuff. I also have seen lumpy ice that was like a thousand beer bottles or utility pole insulators. Pretty much unskiable. Don't assume because it is in the west the ice can't be the real deal.

The only sign I would like to see is one that states, "if you aren't comfortable with what you see, you can be downloaded on the lift". When I patrolled there I took plenty of people down on a toboggan who weren't injured, they were just part way down a slope which they had no hope of skiing, and a series of hard crashes seemed like a bad idea.

 

[slowrider]

See my earlier post. The ice there can be on occasion magnificent Glazed, polished, hard, and equal to anything I've seen in the east or on an injected world cup race hill. Normally they leave it open for those who like to ski that stuff. I also have seen lumpy ice that was like a thousand beer bottles or utility pole insulators. Pretty much unskiable. Don't assume because it is in the west the ice can't be the real deal.

The only sign I would like to see is one that states, "if you aren't comfortable with what you see, you can be downloaded on the lift". When I patrolled there I took plenty of people down on a toboggan who weren't injured, they were just part way down a slope which they had no hope of skiing, and a series of hard crashes seemed like a bad idea.

To take someone down in a toboggan on ice....legs of steel.

 

[newfydog]

To take someone down in a toboggan on ice....legs of steel.

The Bachelor toboggans have a loop of chain in the front. You can drop the chain, which then goes under the sled. One of our lighter female patrollers had a technique of partially sitting on the handles to to drive the chain into the ice. A second patroller on a tail rope is often used. We took some whales off the icy slopes. I later patrolled at a resort in Canada and was disappointed to find no chain brake on their sleds

 

[slowrider]

The Bachelor toboggans have a loop of chain in the front. You can drop the chain, which then goes under the sled. One of our lighter female patrollers had a technique of partially sitting on the handles to to drive the chain into the ice. A second patroller on a tail rope is often used. We took some whales off the icy slopes. I later patrolled at a resort in Canada and was disappointed to find no chain brake on their sleds

I've seen that chain loop. Just like a drag chain on a trailer tire. I've done a few toboggans....it ain't easy.

 

[Tricia]

See my earlier post. The ice there can be on occasion magnificent Glazed, polished, hard, and equal to anything I've seen in the east or on an injected world cup race hill. Normally they leave it open for those who like to ski that stuff. I also have seen lumpy ice that was like a thousand beer bottles or utility pole insulators. Pretty much unskiable. Don't assume because it is in the west the ice can't be the real deal.

The only sign I would like to see is one that states, "if you aren't comfortable with what you see, you can be downloaded on the lift". When I patrolled there I took plenty of people down on a toboggan who weren't injured, they were just part way down a slope which they had no hope of skiing, and a series of hard crashes seemed like a bad idea.

When we were there, we were commenting on how gorgeous the Rime Ice is.
Its a beauty to look at but not so much fun to ski.

 

[slowrider]

 

[François Pugh]

The Bachelor toboggans have a loop of chain in the front. You can drop the chain, which then goes under the sled. One of our lighter female patrollers had a technique of partially sitting on the handles to to drive the chain into the ice. A second patroller on a tail rope is often used. We took some whales off the icy slopes. I later patrolled at a resort in Canada and was disappointed to find no chain brake on their sleds

All the toboggans I've used have the Chain Break.

 

[James]

The merits of this will not be decided on whether it was icy but rather did the liftie really tell them it wasn’t icy. If so, then there is probably liability for false information. If no comment was made then it falls under a tragic accident in bad conditions.
The top of summit is fairly large and flat. To get to Healy Heights you have to make a u turn at the bottom of the ramp and traverse a bit skiers right to get to the top of it.

Some years ago I got called in to the mountain manager’s office to give my account of what happened to a guy who tore knee ligaments getting off the lift.

I’d been sitting next to the guy on his left. On his right was a racer girl. We get to the top, there’s someone, or two people fallen in the unloading ramp. The girl takes off quickly to the right, going outside the cones. I went left around them. I don’t know how the guy fell, but I look back and he’s on the ground, obviously hurt.

I called for patrol, they asked if I was sure we needed another sled, as this was now the third at that location. Yep, this guy just got hurt, don’t know about the other two.

He was in his mid 60’s, a fairly competent skier based on what he told me on the lift of his upcoming ski trip. So the interesting thing is that he claimed I swore at the liftie as to why he didn’t stop the lift. I never did that, but he did that.

I presume they settled, because I never heard another word about it.

So they do close it when they know it's bad. All I'm saying is that NO B:LUE OR GREEN trail should ever be open (as a blue or gree ntrail) in fall and you slide 500 feet and possibly die conditions.

Well Jackson has double blues. I watched from the chairlift as a guy fell and slid probably 100 yards down a double blue. We skied next to that trail off piste and then on it for the bottom. I wouldn’t have called it icy, but firm.

Having changeable trail signs just means the ski area opens itself to more lawsuits if they don’t change the sign. If you choose to drive down an unplowed road, should there really be a sign?

 

[Tricia]

but every time a business starts to put signs up taking responsibility out of the hands of the participant they are taking on a bit of liability as well.

Having changeable trail signs just means the ski area opens itself to more lawsuits if they don’t change the sign. If you choose to drive down an unplowed road, should there really be a sign?

Yup!

 

[KingGrump]

Having changeable trail signs just means the ski area opens itself to more lawsuits if they don’t change the sign. If you choose to drive down an unplowed road, should there really be a sign?

And whose job is it to decide whether which shade of blue is the trail. Perhaps a lighter shade of black. A entirely new gray scale?

 

[James]

The only standardized trail trail rating I’d like to see is for learning terrain. Many greens have short steep sections that are solid blue. That wouldn’t make the standard.

Soon enough we’ll have virtual reality where people will ski trails before they're even there. Then they’ll bitch and moan and give crappy reviews because it didn’t match reality.

 

[fatbob]

Having changeable trail signs just means the ski area opens itself to more lawsuits if they don’t change the sign. If you choose to drive down an unplowed road, should there really be a sign?

It can't be beyond the wit of man and lawyers to craft some form of wording that presents possibly relevant information to help people manage their own risk with a form of disclaimer that the information may not have been updated that day or for some time etc etc, isn't warranted and isn't intended to be the major basis of decision making.

I think it's just plain dumb to have a world in which you are restricted from offering potentially helpful information because doing so creates an obligation to maintain the same standard of helpful information everywhere.

And it does happen - I've definitely seen whiteboards or chalkboards in N America saying things like "conditions firm - long slides may result". Most common are the early season condition warnings on ungroomed trails which I've noticed sometimes last all season.

 

[Shawn]

So the interesting thing is that he claimed I swore at the liftie as to why he didn’t stop the lift. I never did that, but he did that.

-Now that sounds more like ski area negligence. In my mind, the operation of the lifts is firmly the ski area’s responsibility.

-Though I wonder why the skier couldn’t stop himself or otherwise avoid the fallen skiers ahead. Was he not paying attention? Not ready when he was supposed to be ready? There’s a possibility for some negligence of his own.

-Settling here, if that’s what ended up happening, was probably reasonable.