Wachusett Mountain skier dies after crashing into tree, another hurt in unrelated incident
PRINCETON - A skier was killed in a crash on Wachusett Mountain Monday and another was seriously hurt in a separate incident.
A spokesperson for the resort said a man hit a tree on Salamander Cutoff, an advanced trail around 9:25 a.m. Witnesses said it appeared he lost control. He was identified Wednesday as 67-year-old John Lapato of Shrewsbury.
Wachusett co-owner Carolyn Crowley Stimpson told WBZ-TV the ski patrol did their best to save him. "Patrol performed CPR on the spot and brought him down to the base area where he was taken by ambulance," Stimpson said.
Police and fire crews from Westminster and Princeton responded to the accident. Westminster Fire Chief Kyle Butterfield told WBZ, the initial 911 call came from a ski lift rider.
"They saw a person at the side of the trail that was unresponsive," said Chief Butterfield.
Stimpson said this is the first death at Wachusett in the last 15-to-20 years. "It's just heartbreaking. It's truly a family atmosphere here, so we're all broken up," she told WBZ.
State Police Detectives assigned to the Worcester County District Attorney's Office are investigating the death.
"The entire Wachusett family is grieving this tragic loss. All of our thoughts are with the skier's family and friends," Wachusett's public relations manager Chris Stimpson said in a statement.
Less than two hours after the first accident, Chief Butterfield says a second call came in with a reported "head strike" on a different
black diamond trail further up the mountain. That 74-year-old skier is expected to be OK, but now Butterfield is urging mountain-goers to wear their helmets and know their limits.
"If you're not comfortable doing the more professional trails, stick to the moderate challenging trails," he advised.
Skier Leo Collard from Upton said he saw rescue vehicles arrive at the mountain and learned of the accident from a fellow skier.
"We saw the rescue vehicles and then I ran into a gentleman that told me that this gentleman had went off the side of the mountain and hit a tree," said Collard.
Expert skier Frank Kelliher of West Roxbury said though he's skied the trail the accident occurred on before, it's a difficult one to navigate.
"I am an expert skier; I've been skiing for a long time and that is a tough trail," he said. "It's narrow, it's an old New England-style trail – it might have been icy at this time of the morning."
As for the conditions of the side of the mountain the trail is on, Wachusett veteran Polly Bixby from Orange, New Hampshire said she was informed of icy conditions while on the lift up, noting that those conditions are to be expected after a chilly night.
"That would be typical, anyone going there after a cold night – it's bound to be that way," she said. "You take those risks and a skier, it's not the mountain's fault, it just happened."