Champion, PA – Pennsylvania State Police are continuing their investigation into a collision at Seven Springs Mountain Resort on Saturday that left one skier dead.
Police indicate that Jeffrey Behr, 51, of Delmont, Penn., was skiing on Seven Springs’ intermediate Wagner trail above the resort’s Main Lodge shortly before 9 p.m. on Saturday night when he was struck by another skier. Behr sustained fatal injuries to his face and neck area.
Toxicology tests to determine whether or not either skier was under the influence remain pending.
According to his obituary, Behr was a project manager with the Kacin Companies. He leaves behind a wife and three children.
“Our entire mountain family is deeply saddened by the tragic accident,” said Seven Springs spokeswoman Katie Buchan. “While we continue to work to uncover the details as to how this occurred, our thoughts and prayers go out to this gentleman’s family, friends and loved ones during this unspeakably difficult time.”
Behr’s death is the third at Seven Springs since 2012.
My believe is, if you bring your family to a public entertainment site such as a Ski Resort, you should not have to risk any of your family’s lives! NONE! The ski resort should not have to hide behind a signed waiver that allows the Ski resort to have NO liability for causing you injury or death no matter what they do or do not do! Something must hold their feet to the fire to make Management decisions & slope design better based on modern safety standards and also correct any that accidents show are needed. For instance, Europe has gone to automatic chairlift safety bar setting. Protection of ALL obstacles ( fixtures, not skiers) on slopes that can be hit (any & all snow heights) by skiers. All curves & cut-off trails on slopes that.a skier can run off trail should be protected by a soft hit net or other device. Its being used in many US ski resorts, b ut not all. Tree hit mitigations could be installed w/o the loss of the trees. Planting bushes ( must be tall enough for snow height compensation) along the tree line that a skier headed for a tree will encounter with some scratches & not death. My belief is there are many close calls before a tree hit causes a death that a ski resort should provide a mitigation. An annual Major ski resort WAG would be hundreds of ski off trail events and have a near miss of hitting a tree. Also 100 or so hitting just a limb. Possibly 20 hitting a tree and only injury. Finally one death every few yrs!
Of course, there is NO SUCH thing as a FREAK ACCIDENT, that is the terminology used when a group or ski resort wants to duck any responsibility! One ski accident in my area tried to call both one ski tree collision a freak accident & then tried again 30 days later on same slope & almost in same area! Most all ski accidents can be prevented or greatly reduced by better management that includes MITIGATIONS! The National Group that represents the US Ski resorts and tries to convince the ski public that its ALL the skiers fault needs to stand up to the challenge and help improve the slope & ski slope management! Its not all the skiers fault on most accidents. The slope management is likely related to all accidents, including the skier collisions among other skiers. Its likely most of that type of accident is the skiers!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/skisafety/