Karl Persson’s 5-year-old son got separated from his ski instructor while skiing in trees at Deer Valley on Sunday, February 12th.
The instructor told Persson and his wife their son was lost around 1:15 p.m., and they found him just after 2:45 p.m.
Persson said his son told him the instructor fell, but the boy didn’t want to stop and kept skiing, then eventually hit a tree and got stuck in a tree well.
“He said he kept screaming, he said he thought he was going to die, and finally he said that he got himself out,” Persson said. “He took the skis off, he crawled through the snow down to the Banner run, and he sat there and this guest couple helped him.”
Persson said he took issue with how the resort employees reacted while the boy was lost. The dad said after the instructor told him about the situation, he told the instructor where he would search first and went there to look. But afterwards, he learned the ski school had not even been there.
Later, he said administrators didn’t assure him the situation wasn’t likely to happen again.
“When I asked their president Todd Bennett what he expected to be done, he was being evasive at first,” Persson said. “But then when I asked him as a father what he would have wanted, he said that, ‘Well, I would expect you to pull out all the stops.’ And that did not happen in this case. They definitely did not pull out all the stops, and it is unacceptable. What is further unacceptable is the fact that no one from Deer Valley ever inquired about my son's well being, no one ever apologized. All they did was issue this corporate media communication where they say they apologized, and that's just completely inadequate.”
A Deer Valley spokesperson sent that message to KPCW but did not agree to answer further questions.
The release said, “A student being separated from their instructor is something we take seriously. We have specific protocols in place to communicate with on mountain staff to coordinate a search and locate the student as quickly as possible. We apologize for the distress this has caused to the child and his family and we are meeting with each of our instructors and mountain leaders to reinforce and review our existing training and procedures.”
Persson said he hoped the resort would establish new protocols to respond better to similar situations in the future and encouraged parents to ask questions about where their children will be before sending them to ski school.
He also said his son is traumatized by the incident and doesn’t want to ski anymore.
