another patroller fatality, March 18, 2009

That said trumpeting your silly righteous indignation here is pretty damned insensitive -- IM me or lose the snarky tone if you've got an issue.

Well said Sir! I'm with you on this one.

Basically I was just blown away to find out that ski patrol organizations, by definition the "safety police" of the skiing world, don't require that their workers wear helmets and was wonder why.  Seemed out of sync with their purpose and the reality of their work.

I'd be more blown away to meet a patroller that thought of themselves as "Safety Police"

Is the hang up that most patroller are too good to have a bad fall?  Was Coombs?

Bound to ruffle some feathers in a thread reporting the death of a ski patroller, which may or may not have had anything to do with helmets or head injuries.  Accept my apologies for the tone of my post.
PM sent.

And yet another thread of someone passing in the mountains that has to turn into unrelated discussions, "arm-chair quarterbacking" and speculation.

From someone who has unfortunately been on the other end of this, the two worst things family/loved-ones of the deceased can see is anonymous, face-less posters sounding off on the subject and starting to pick it apart, or people waxing philosophical/poetic about the glories and luck of dieing in the mountains.

And before anyone gets all bent out of shape about my comment I recognize this behavior is never going to stop, just please think about real people involved as well as what people will say when it's you who died in the mountains making a bone-head (or not!) move that we all make at least once every time we're out.

And yet another thread of someone passing in the mountains that has to turn into unrelated discussions, "arm-chair quarterbacking" and speculation.

From someone who has unfortunately been on the other end of this, the two worst things family/loved-ones of the deceased can see is anonymous, face-less posters sounding off on the subject and starting to pick it apart, or people waxing philosophical/poetic about the glories and luck of dieing in the mountains.

And before anyone gets all bent out of shape about my comment I recognize this behavior is never going to stop, just please think about real people involved as well as what people will say when it's you who died in the mountains making a bone-head (or not!) move that we all make at least once every time we're out.

I can understand your point of view and how speculation regarding the death of a loved one can affect those that have lost BUT this is a skiing discussion board and most people on this site are deeply moved by the loss of any skier/rider/'biler and naturally try and learn lessons from the incident .
It is done in the most part without malice or the intention of pointing out mistakes or blaming anybody.

Given the recent circumstances regarding skiing deaths due to head injuries ( Natasha Richerdson et al) I think the poster was using the incident as a way to open up a discussion as to why Ski Patrol's whose main stated objective is safety do not enforce their patrollers to wear helmets( we all know why,... helmets are not as cool as your favourite bobbly beanie)

During the snowboard retrieval last June, the participants where very conscious of the families feelings and tried to control unwanted speculation or blaming to avoid upsetting the family. However there where serious lessons to be learnt from that incident and without discussion and analysis those lessons would have been lost.

I am unaware of the circumstances regarding your loss but I understand  the feeling that prompted your post but without discussion how do you learn from the incident?

Well said Scotty. Discussion and learning is one of the highest honors we can pay to any of our skiing brothers and sisters that die in the mountains. Personally, I think it's an appropriate development of a thread like this, as long as everyone keeps their cool -- alpineearth's point re: family who might run across this post is well taken.

Still, this board is, for most, a far cry from anonymous, face-less posters sounding off on the subject -- most of us know each other and the "family" is fairly tightly knit, at least for an internet chatroom. That's most of the reason I'm here, rather than TGR or TTips.

My condolences to this patroller's family and friends.