Quoted here is a bit from the article:
Billy had never skied before and talked about taking a lesson, but decided he would try out his rental gear first and see how comfortable he felt before signing up with an instructor. He, Christy and another friend headed to Peak 8, where they hopped on the lift to the beginner ski trails.
Billy, an athlete who regularly rollerbladed, played hockey or rode his bike, felt like he was beginning to get the hang of the new sport.
He elected not to sign up for a lesson, a decision that would later gnaw at his grieving parents.
At 2:10 that afternoon, Billy was skiing on the green Park Lane trail under the two-person Chair 5 - his third run of the day - when he somehow lost control, hit the snow and tumbled into the trees.
Christy had been skiing ahead of him and didn't see the accident. She was waiting at the bottom of the lift and started to worry after about five minutes .
After about 10 or 15 minutes of waiting and "freaking out," she saw ski patrol bringing someone down the mountain in a sled.
"I was hoping that it wasn't him. I kind of had a feeling that it could be him I just didn't know if he had gotten stuck or ..." Christy said trailing off.
A friend waiting with Christy went to check with the patrollers and reported back that she thought it was indeed Billy. An employee of the ski resort confirmed that Billy had been hurt.
At the medical center, Christy frantically called Billy's mom, Melinda. There had been an accident and Billy was injured, she said, but nobody would tell her what was going on.
The McDonnels knew from the phone call it was bad situation, but they could never guess the worst had happened: Their first-born and only son had died in a horrible accident.
Nobody's sure exactly what happened. Two witnesses reported seeing a puff of snow. Bill McDonnel heard that his son may have launched off a bump before colliding with the hard snow surface.
the rest of the article is here:
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070625/NEWS/106250050/0/FRONTPAGE
