Landing sent teen
skier into tree
18-year-old now breathing on his own in hospital, twin brother says
By Susan LeBlanc / Staff Reporter
As a lifelong and champion skier, Chris Currie had done the jump a hundred times before.
But Sunday morning in a treed area at Ski Wentworth, it went wrong.
A jump with an out-of-control landing sent Chris, 18, hurtling into a tree, said his twin brother Kyle, who was skiing with Chris and two of their friends at the time.
'He did a jump and he overshot, meaning he went too far, and when he landed, he hit a compression (an upslope) and it threw him out of control,' Kyle said Tuesday from the Curries' Dartmouth home.
Kyle, who saw the accident 'in the corner of my eye,' said Chris apparently tried to veer his head away from the tree and 'kind of wrapped his body around it.'
'He's a good enough skier that he wouldn't have just accepted it,' he said.
'This is just an easy trail that we did a hundred times that day, and this actual jump we've done a hundred times.
'He miscalculated it and got in trouble,' Kyle said.
He said the helmeted Chris sustained a brain bruise and brain swelling but no chest injuries.
He said staff at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, where Chris was airlifted Sunday, removed Chris's breathing tube Tuesday morning, and that his brother opened his eyes and was breathing on his own.
'He opened his eyes a bit, but he's not conscious,' Kyle said.
The hospital would not discuss the patient except to say he remains in serious condition. He was upgraded Monday to serious from critical.
The twin brothers, both first-year arts students at Saint Mary's University, started skiing at about age three and ski every weekend in winter, said Kyle.
The family owns a cottage in the Wentworth area.
Ski officials have called the boys expert skiers.
Indeed, the treed area near the top of the hill, where the accident occurred, is rated for experts, said Leslie Wilson, the ski hill's assistant manager.
'It's up to the individual (whether to ski there or not). It's an accessible area,' she said Tuesday.
Both former ski racers, Kyle said he and Chris have begun slopestyle or 'new school skiing' - an emerging area of freestyle judged jumps and tricks.
Chris won such a competition two weekends ago at Wentworth, said his brother.
'You land backwards off the jumps,' Kyle said, 'slide on rails - like a handrail. You jump on and you balance all the way to the end, you slide across it.
'I guess our field of skiers could be classified as a risk-taking side of skiing, because there's going to be risks involved in what we do,' he said.
But he said 'everything we do is pretty calculated. . . . We're both so experienced in doing stuff, it's kind of second nature.'
Calling himself the more accident-prone one, Kyle said Chris once broke his wrist skiing but had suffered nothing this serious before.
The ski patrol at Ski Wentworth followed standard procedure, interviewed witnesses and filled out an accident report form, said Ms. Wilson.
She said the report has been completed but is not available to the public.
Wow, these twins are my skiing Icons...I was at the hill when all this happened. It is Quite a shock.
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