Steamboat Ski Resort ski patroller Paula Lepporoli jumped right into action when she saw a snowboard sticking out of some branches while she skied through the trees on the resort’s Typhoon run, and a 40-year-old snowboarder from Denver has her to thank for saving his life, according to a story in the Steamboat Pilot.
Lepporoli’s training kicked in as she popped off her skis and rushed to help. She dug out the rider’s head, stuck 3 1/2 feet under the snow in a tree well. . . . “He wasn’t breathing when I got there, and I cleared his airways, and he started breathing,” the 20-year Ski Patrol veteran said. “It took us 10 minutes to get him out of there.”. . . The 40-year-old Denver man survived and wasn’t hospitalized, Lepporoli said.
A few minutes later and the man’s wife and three-year-old son would have lost a husband and father. Reminds us to stick together in the trees. This can happen to anyone.
[Link: Steamboat Pilot]
