Woodstock Early Birds, the lost skiier who was in and out of consciousness listed in our headline is now “okay” according to the Vermont State Police report sent late last night. Details of the incident below.
While Woodstock Early Bird has had no success in getting responses to call or emails to Killington Resort officials concerning the seemingly large number of out-of-bounds lost skier reports, what is significant is that now — as of last night — Vermont State Police have essentially said “enough.” Here is a statement from Capt. Ray Keefe, VSP Troop “D” Commander, on the number of lost skiier rescue mobilizations:
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.
Here is the rest of the release:
Vermont State Police Press Release
On 01/08/13 at approximately 4:30 pm 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
-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 eventually assisted out at approximately 10pm, five and a half hours after the first call to 911 and were both checked out medically and released.
Julia Carlisle
Woodstock Early Bird 
Posted by Steven Thomas on January 9, 2013 at 08:06
I would like to make a suggestion as a great fan of WEB. If we must learn about all of the wayward skiers, how about every Monday (or whenever–but 1 day) there be a tally of all lost skiers instead of sometimes 2, 3, 4 reports a day? Of course, something significant beyond the normal skiing out of bounds makes sense to report singly but WEB has this season is in danger of morphing into the PKLBD (Pico/Killington Lost Boys Digest). Keep up the good work!!
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Posted by Julia Carlisle on January 9, 2013 at 08:17
Thanks Steve. This is just the problem: With the frequency of lost skier occurrences we see these incidents as less of a problem, as routine. Imagine if our first responders, VSP and Ski Patrollers started taking that approach? We’re pretty sure they don’t, but they might start to yawn every time they get a lost call, ’cause we all know the drill, right? That’s when mistakes are made and lives may be lost. So, we believe that no single incident is routine.
We are well aware that this has turned into the PKLBD and it sure bores the heck out of WEB as we’re sure it bores WEB readers. However, in keeping with WEB policy of passing along each police report in its “original text” state — which we think is a service to the public to get un-filtered reports — WEB will continue to issue individual reports relevant to the Woodstock Early Bird area. We hope, as you do, that the number of VSP reports involving Killington and Pico diminishes. However, there are issues of common sense and safety that WEB believes are important to bring out in the open with these reports. Also, what goes on at Killington and Pico is very relevant to our Village readership as ski tourism is “KING”.
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Posted by Richard Windish on January 9, 2013 at 10:46
Julia, your last comment really rings true, and is also rather scary to me…WHAT IF the VSP, etc. do start to take these calls less seriously, and WHAT IF one of these calls comes in from someone, for lack of a better phrase, “more legitimately entitled” to a rescue than one of these errant, grossly negligent skiers. In other words, a properly prepared, skilled mountaineer, who, through no real fault of their own, winds up injured and trapped on the side of a mountain, truly in need of a rescue. Given that my friends and I, as regular winter hikers/backcountry skiers/snowshoers, could potentially find ourselves in this position, I am troubled by a trend wherein people abuse the system like this…heading off into the woods without proper preparation and then simply “pulling the plug” on an ill-conceived and poorly executed adventure by calling 911. To the extent that this erodes the willingness and/or patience of the public safety officials who are tasked with these rescues, I would sure not want to be on the phone with these folks trying to explain that I am not one of the idiots, but an actual responsible person who had a legitimate accident and needs to be rescued!
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Posted by Steven Thomas on January 10, 2013 at 07:19
I think you are missing my point here. In no way did I advocate the VSP forsake the lost boys. My point was that WEB was being overrun with each and every one of these cases and it gets a bit redundant. We get it.
OF COURSE the VSP should treat each case seriously, but WEB could spare us, her faithful readers, a post on each and every one of the seemingly endless number of directionally challenged skiers and simply give us a weekly digest of their episodes since the WEB readers are not the ones who must gear up and save them.
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