Fatal accident at Les Deux Alpes

A snowHead

Fatal accident at Les Deux Alpes. Very sad.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4308786/Brit-skier-intensive-care-crashing-Italian.html?ito=email_share_article-top

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Highly likely that one or more of the victims was behaving in an inappropriate manner - no need for life threatening speeds on a blue run. From my highly unscientific observations on moderate pistes I estimate about 1 in 10 of people skiing at my somewhat arbitrary measure of high speed are really capable skiers applying proper steering to their skis the rest seem skilled at high speed balancing on their heels or weird bending over or worse.

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He could end up on Manslaughter charges & jail.

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Sympathy to the poor guy who died. What happened will be clearly be reported as the investigation progresses.

One or both must have been travelling at excessive speed for such a tragic outcome.

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Never happy to read anything like that; irrespective of what really happened, not a nice situation to be in for anyone involved, nor nearest & dearests.
Sad also that at several times in the article there is an overt reference to one party not wearing a helmet and the other wearing one; which may or may not be relevant either to outcome or causality, but certainly seems over-emphasised (as seems so usual in the media, and please let's not start the debate again!)
But to quote at least one more relevant and true statement from said article: "Packed slopes, faster speeds and poor skiing etiquette often lead to accidents on ski slopes..." IMHO, it's often the very first one which is the real issue, leading to problems with the second and third when they all too frequently occur (and add in lack of appropriate ability and/or equipment for the conditions/slope).

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Sympathy to the poor guy who died. What happened will be clearly be reported as the investigation progresses.

One or both must have been travelling at excessive speed for such a tragic outcome.

After all it is free

Certainly a very packed resort. Known for the limited amount of skiing for such a high profile resort. I've heard it called one and a half Alps.
I wonder how many skiers there are per acre at peak times at some European resorts?

http://www.bfmtv.com/police-justice/collision-mortelle-entre-deux-skieurs-aux-deux-alpes-1120571.html

Had a bit of first hand from a pisteur friend. After the crash they ended up 25m apart. It was just below Toura and the Panobar which is similar to Folie Douce. Normally a quiet run @cameronphillips2000, is talking bollox. RIP the deceased.

As an aside achilles was taken out from behind in the same place earlier yesterday when the run was almost empty.

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@rob@rar, yes some germans who stopped, helped him up and were very apologetic. I was about 50m down the piste.

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@Claude B, wonder if it was at the intersection of runs just below pano bar? IIRC there are a few runs which all converge into one...

@dobby, more or less yes. At Panobar closing time too.

You know it makes sense.

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A snowHead

Mmmm 5pm

A snowHead

I'm OK, thanks for the comern. Spyderjon gave me very strong advice that he should adjust my bindings downwards. Glad I took it, my skis released cleanly. I was surprised to be taken out; I had ben concentrating on a regular rhythm - and no traverses. I don't think the other guy was a speed freak, but he did make an error of judgement.

There have been some skiers skiing fast with little evidence of control. In contrast it has been interesting to watch Claude B who is certainly quick, but has a knack of not appearing to be so. Very much in control. Gets through traffic without fuss or intimidation. It can be done.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Claude B

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@skitow, Yes 😇

A pisteur friend was involved in tending to both. I haven't spoken to him but hé was with someone I skied with yesterday later that evening. Sounds as if it was a huge impact. I did see him walking home, he lives in the same building as me, he'd obviously had a few to help forget a difficult day 😖

I have my own theories but; it was fairly busy Sunday, sunny afternoon, at 5 Panobar finishes and the accident was on a piste below it, there are 3 or 4 pistes converging at that point.

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They're appealing for witnesses to a serious accident in Serre Che on Sunday. Skier hit a boarder. Sad

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After all it is free

@bambionskiis, achilles is a person Laughing

Energy=1/2 mv^2. Velocity (more accurately speed in most cases) is the big player in collisions. 100kg skier all kitted out and doing 60 km/hr is delivering 14500 joules ish. One joule is what an apple falling off a table feels like when it lands on your toe. The former is a real bump.

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@cameronphillips2000, have you ever been here or are you an internet observer? I maintain bollox 😃 After 3 full seasons and numerous weeks before that I do know the place pretty well. I actually said fairly busy!

You know it makes sense.

@Dave of the Marmottes, please can you have a word with my younger daughter? She doesn't listen to me rolling eyes

@cameronphillips2000, I've skied L2A a couple of times and wouldn't say that it was very packed - certainly no worse than other resorts I have been to. Yes, L2A overstates the mileage on piste length and there are some bottlenecks/busy pistes, but the bottlenecks and busyness are no worse than in other places. I've seen far more packed pistes in La Thuile, Are, Hemsedal and Risoul, for example.

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These accidents can happen anytime and anywhere. Last week I was doing an off-piste course in 3v. Having just skied down off-piste under the pylons next to Combe de Pylons (black), our group decided to ski down into 1850 for a coffee. On a very quiet and uncrowded run down Verdons (green), one of our number collided with another skier. Our man was knocked unconscious, sustaining broken bones in face and ribs. The other skier was more seriously hurt but the exact injuries are conjecture. This was on a green run FFS! It's massive, wide, straight, gentle grade and it was almost deserted, but still the two managed to collide. All it takes is two skiers doing wide turns 180 degrees out of phase with each other and sooner or later they come together as one traverses left and the other to the right. I suspect that target fixation plays a part. Our skier was late middle age and not reckless. The other was a father out skiing with his young son, so unlikely to be speeding either...

A snowHead

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I find piste skiing really really scary, in Europe there are so many people skiing way too fast on blues and reds, they may think they can stop but if the unexpected happens they may not be able to and on blues and reds there are always lots of skiers who are improving their skills but can be unpredictable in that their skill is not as good as they may wish and sudden inadvertent changes of direction are not unusual. In Canada there are lots of places where there are "piste police" to slow down the speed merchants approaching areas where there may be slower and less experienced skiers and also at conjunctions between two or more pistes.

This was a tragedy which shouldnt have happened with that distance between the fallen skiers it is likely that one or both were simply way too fast for the area on which they were skiing. So very very sad, hope the injured skiier recovers and RIP to the deceased.

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@Dave of the Marmottes, spot on re skiing too close together. Can you please tell my daughter that? rolling eyes

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@cameronphillips2000, I'll agree that L2A is a marmite resort...probably, THE marmite resort.

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RIP...and best luck to the injured skier.

I got a good idea from a friend, and I try to use it: ski as if everyone in front of you is a potential suicide candidate thinking of throwing himself / herself in front of you. If you can still avoid them, you're skiing in control.

But even then you can have surprises. In Solden, a couple of weeks ago, I had at least 200-300 m of empty red piste ahead of me and I decided to go for some high-speed carving. On my fourth or fifth turn (still no one ahead for a long part of the run) a young chap passed about four inches in front of my skis, straight downhill, at breakneck speed. He wasn't a great skier, either. A third of a second later and we may well have both ended up in hospital.

I caught up and gave him a bollocking (in English) while he was trying to explain to me in German that I was taking up too much of the piste by doing my carved turns...I wish my German had been better so I could explain the FIS rules to him. I hope he was suitably impressed by my rage (held it back though, he wasn't that much older than my son...although if my son ever did that I'd want him to get a verbal bollocking, too).

After all it is free

Sorry to hear this- had a scary collision myself in les arcs last week and piste was not that crowded, coming to mid section of transarc - was the downhill skier and not making wide turns or anything when was hit very hard by a bloke going very fast (Esp for a blue) swollen ankle, cracked ribs and a broken helmet, all in all I consider myself lucky.

A shocking but not surprising near-collision story horizon. Seen stuff like that so many times - and increasingly so IMO. And as you found out, when confronted, the culprits rarely, if ever, show a note of contrition.

While skiing at moderate speed on a normal piste, I was once about an inch away from being taken out a full race speed by a member of the Canadian ski team. Terrifying. As this happened near the bottom of the run - and I was pretty shaken up and annoyed - I skied over and asked what he thought he'd been playing at and that he could kill someone....This was met by an abusive response. So I abused him back. Possibly a bit childish - but at least I felt better for it.

Possibly worse is when you see your spouse/friend/relation in a near miss - you see it all happening before you and can do nothing about it as you wonder if they will be hit.

I definitely think busy runs should be monitored by ski patrol - who should confiscate lift tickets from offenders. The worst speeding idiots use fellow slope users as human slalom poles on busy runs... Confused

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Some people just have no concept of personal space or awareness of others. The number of times people have whipped by me at high speed this week with inches to spare (when I've most definitely NOT been doing anything unpredictable or even going that slow) is terrifying. One was a bloody instructor.

Not to mention people going at high speed through piste junctions simply because they don't want to deal with a flat the other side. One hit my 8 year old daughter today (I managed to leap out the way), who was going at most 5mph, as was I. No damage done as she just boarded over the back of her skis and knocked her over, but it could have been so much worse. There was hardly anyone else around so I can only assume target fixation, or just obliviousness and recklessness. She didn't even stop, just picked up her board and cleared off.

Help!!

Fatal accident at Les Deux Alpes

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