Killington
posted
Jan 17, 2013
On Jan. 8 at approximately 4:30 p.m. the VT State Police
received two 911 calls from two skiers who had intentionally skied
off the main trails at Killington Mountain and were now lost.
They were identified as: Trevor Smith, age 21 from New Jersey
and Christopher Feehan, age 21 from New Jersey.
The skiers, upon becoming lost, had separated from each other
and Smith was advising that he was not doing well as he had gotten
wet during the decent.
VT State Police began tracking the two skiers via GPS and
eventually the two located each other and were being talked down
when Smith began experiencing serious fatigue, became incoherent,
and would not respond to State Police and ski patrol requests to
keep moving. Smith eventually stopped moving, was reportedly
unconscious and Killington ski patrol rapidly sent four members in
via a hiking trail in Mendon.
Both Smith and Feehan were assisted out at approximately 10
p.m., five and a half hours after the first call to 911 and were
both checked out medically and released.
This year has seen an unacceptable amount of skiers, primarily
at Killington Mountain, intentionally leaving the marked trails and
eventually having to call for assistance to get out of the woods.
This places a large drain on State Police uniform and dispatch
resources and the State Police will be looking to work with
Killington Mountain in an effort to curtail these reckless and
poorly thought out acts by skiers who are not physically/mentally
prepared to deal with the harsh Vermont winter conditions they face
upon getting lost.
