This is part two in a three-part series on Colorado skier deaths. Click here for part one.
Kristine Gustafson wakes up each morning with the same thought: What really happened on Jan. 12, 2017?
Late in the afternoon on a chilly but clear powder day, the Centennial resident, her close friend, Sean Haberthier, and three other skiers were standing at the top of Breckenridge Ski Resorts Peak 8 Contest Bowl. They stopped to take a break and appreciate the near-perfect conditions they had marked with fresh tracks the whole day. They all agreed to meet at the bottom of the E Chair before a final run to the base.
Always the first one down, Haberthier was a conspicuous no-show, an instant red flag to the group. Calls to his cellphone went unanswered, and his friends began to worry.
The 47-year-old lived to ski, for years making the 5 a.m. drive up to Summit or Vail from Denver most days during the winter to pursue his passion. It was not out of the ordinary for Haberthier to eclipse well over 100 days each season.
You had to pry him away from it, said Gustafson. He approached it almost like a job and never missed a powder day. Hed bring his lunch with him and would get antsy if anyone he was with even had to go to the bathroom, because he wanted to get every single moment in on the day.
When Haberthier collided with a tree on the Lower Boneyard run that Thursday, he became the third skier to die at a resort in Colorado this season No. 127, overall, since the 2006-07 season.
To his friends, though, he wasnt yet a statistic when they alerted ski patrol of his disappearance that evening. Final evening sweeps of the mountain found nothing, and officials from the resort and the sheriffs office suggested he might have headed into town to join the annual Ullr Fest revelry. Haberthiers friends braced for bad news.
Sixteen hours passed in the frigid cold before a search party finally found Haberthiers remains the following morning in a tucked-away stand of lodgepole pines. A 4-inch gash ran across the back of his head, which the coroner would later assign as the cause of death, despite his friends still having questions.
Its been hard on all of us, said Gustafson. I just cant explain the feeling of him being there one second, and then us standing at the bottom waiting, with my gut telling me to go back up and look. They tell me he died on impact, but what if he didnt? What if he was just unconscious, and something could have been done? The thought of him being out there all night by himself; its shattered me.
Front lines
At least 137 people have died skiing at Colorado resorts since the 2006-07 season. More than 40 percent of those deaths occurred at one of Summit Countys four ski areas, among the most heavily trafficked winter sports destinations in the nation. During the past 10 years, Summit County has seen 58 ski-related fatalities far more than any other county in the state.
So far this season, Colorado has recorded 13 ski deaths. Five of them, including Sean Haberthier, happened at Breckenridge Ski Resort, one of North Americas most popular ski areas.
By volume, Summit Countys Regan Wood is one of the busiest coroners in the state, if not the country, when it comes to ski death investigations. Shes on the front lines of every fatality in the county, observing firsthand the trends behind the tragedies the overdoses, the suicides, the altitude-related heart attacks.
However, Wood holds an elected position that largely flies under the publics radar. In Colorado, coroners are not required to have a medical background. The only qualifications for making a run at the office are a high school diploma, a clean criminal record and one year of residency in the county. It would seem that politics has little to do with investigating deaths. And, for the most part, that rings true for Wood.
Not unlike other mountain town residents, Wood has worn many hats since she moved to Summit County 25 years ago to ski. She slung lift tickets at Copper Mountain Resort; volunteered for the Advocates for Victims of Assault, a group she eventually ran; and, in 2008, embarked on a new career path as a deputy coroner.
Coroners and their deputies are charged with determining the cause and manner of death. They do this by reading the signs on the body, studying the environment where the deceased met his or her end, obtaining toxicology tests, taking scans, securing medical records and interviewing family members. Often, the coroner calls for an autopsy, a procedure conducted by a medically trained pathologist. It is the gold standard for death investigations, according to experts.
Its a job for someone with a strong stomach, and Wood dove into it headfirst. The position became her lifes calling.
Though state law requires only minimal training, Wood binged on internships, courses and certifications. Eventually, when her mentor left office, she put her name in the hat to take his place. Running unopposed as a Republican, she took the oath of office in January 2015.
Still a devout skier, she prides herself on getting out on the mountain at least three times per week. But, given a swelling county population and increasing popularity of Summits resorts, theres been a rising tide of ski fatalities, and Wood has had to make even more trips to the resorts each winter.
Wood is confident she investigates each case thoroughly.
However, of the 58 ski-related fatalities recorded in Summit County over the past 10 years, only five autopsies have been performed. Thats a stark contrast to coroners in most other counties with ski areas. And in deaths where an autopsy was not called, Colorados open records law significantly narrows the amount of available public information.
A lone ranger
By the time Sean Haberthier was found, about 8:30 a.m. Friday, Jan. 13, his body was so hardened from the overnight freeze that hed have to thaw out so a physical exam could be completed.
For a skier or snowboarder at a resort to have a serious accident and not be immediately attended to is abnormal. In a typical case, ski patrollers, certified in emergency medical care, are alerted, arrive quickly and attempt to save the persons life.
When Wood responds to the scene of a fatality, she tries to understand the circumstances of the death by interviewing witnesses. For Haberthiers accident, there were none.
After concluding the manner of death as accidental, the body is moved to the morgue, and a series of tests, including X-rays and CT scans, is conducted. In this case, each assisted with understanding just how serious a blow to the head Haberthier suffered when he slammed into a tree.
To help determine someones cause of death, the county coroner has at her disposal forensic pathologists to perform autopsies. From board-certified medical examiners to researchers for the National Institutes of Health, the postmortem exam is considered a hallmark of diagnosis. It is used to definitively come to scientific conclusions by closely analyzing a decedents body and internal organs.
However, state statute grants considerable freedom to coroners for whether to call for the procedure. According to National Association of Medical Examiners standards, autopsies are required in particular types of deaths, including car crashes, aircraft accidents, drownings, electrocutions and fatalities associated with police activity. Ski accidents dont make the cut, but many coroners offices still order autopsies in those cases.
Caruso is an uncommon breed in Colorado. He is the only coroner required to be a forensic pathologist. Denver, along with Pitkin and Weld, are Colorados only three counties to have done away with the elected system for coroner in favor of appointing an individual with an established medical background.
I wouldnt have taken the job, otherwise, said Caruso, adding that, because hes neither elected nor deals in politics, I have no reason to mak
e decisions based on non-medical factors.
Meanwhile, in the states other counties with ski resorts, the data shows an autopsy is conducted on those who died in a ski-related accident between 70 percent and 100 percent of the time.
But, taking a page out of the book of her two predecessors, Wood calls autopsies on a very small number of ski deaths. Instead, she relies heavily on her instincts and instruction as a certified death investigator rather than conforming to the norms followed by the majority of her peers across the state.
I feel we do a good job investigating accidental deaths and doing a comprehensive investigation, taking it all in and asking all the questions, said Wood. Were not here to do autopsies for medical curiosity.
For many of the states coroners, though, the autopsy isnt about intrigue. Its about ensuring a higher level of certainty.
Even though a death may look obvious due to trauma, I always want to know if that may have been induced by outside influences, said Emil Santos, coroner of San Miguel County, home to Telluride Ski Resort. We almost always find something that could be considered a contributing factor in someones death. (We) dont want any surprises.
Routt County Coroner Rob Ryg, a 15-year vet of the area Steamboat Ski Resort calls home, agreed. He cited the example of a 40-year-old San Antonio woman who plummeted 25 feet to her death from a chairlift in December at Ski Granby Ranch where the cause and manner both appeared obvious and yet neighboring Grand County still opted for the postmortem procedure.
Often, I know what happened, but Im just going to do an autopsy, said Ryg. Its better to have a pathologist to say he did not have a heart attack, he died of this. Its just a lot cleaner and a lot simpler that way.
I dont know what the response would be for not doing more autopsies, he added of Summit. Theyre kind of a lone ranger.
Wood said she often doesnt see the need.
An autopsy costs the county roughly $1,500.
Clear cause of death
During the weeks following her best friends death, Gustafson could hardly eat or sleep. She had too many unanswered questions about Haberthiers death. Three months later, she still seeks closure.
Its haunted me, because I was 100 feet from him and I could have hiked back up, she said. These are the questions as friends that we just dont understand. He was such a good skier, and Ive seen the guy get out of some hairy situations, so cant imagine him hitting a tree. It just doesnt make sense to me.
Harry and Lynda Taylor, who lost their 27-year-old son, Jay, in a ski accident at Keystone Resort almost exactly a year before Haberthier died, said the experience with those who handled his body, including the county coroners office, couldnt have been worse. They said they received few answers to inquiries about his death, were actively discouraged by Woods then-deputy coroner from having an autopsy and Jays preference of organ donation was overlooked. They assumed they were dealing with personnel with medical backgrounds.
Because, how often do you deal with a coroner? asked Lynda. And thats the sham of it all, with a skeleton in their office, and all the posters and other photos. You ask medical questions and come to realize they never even referred them up the chain, as they might have.
Having taken the advice not to obtain an autopsy, but with so many questions about how their expert skier son may have died, the Taylors regret not getting a second opinion before having his body cremated, forever eliminating the option. The pain of not knowing doesnt go away.
Because she was not next of kin to Haberthier, Gustafson was unable to petition for an autopsy to better understand what may have ultimately killed her friend that day. When she pressed Wood after the fact due to conflicting reports she received from ski patrollers about the nature of Haberthiers injures, she was repeatedly told that blunt-force trauma had already been determined the cause.
I want to know if he was still alive after he hit, she said. They said for sure he died instantly, but I can tell you, the following two weeks after wouldnt have been as hard if it wasnt for that unknown. Why not do an autopsy? I dont get it.
Wood explained it this way: When I have a decedent with a crushed skull, I have a pretty clear cause of death.
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