Reckless skiier slams into 11-year-old boy on beginner skiing trail, yells at his dad when he reports him to Ski Patrol: 'He immediately started cursing me out and calling me a horrible dad'

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Emmy Pratt • Writer and Editor
Jan 31, 2025 6:00 PM EST

Picture this. You're at the local ice skating rink with your family. Your skill levels range from mostly competent to downright embarrassing, but you're still having a good time going around and around in a circle. Suddenly, a young lady who is clearly a figure skater steps onto the ice and does her thing. How do you feel about this?

For me, it depends. At the Open Skates I've been to over the past couple of years, the outer perimeter of the rink is for the rubes among us, and a smaller, coned-off section in the middle is for the real figure skater girlies to practice their triple salchows. I think that's a great compromise because it allows everyone sufficient space appropriate for their skill levels without hurting others. I would get pretty annoyed if an advanced skater tried to take up all space during a time slot that was clearly not designed for them

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  • If you've been to Open Skates, you've probably also encountered some hockey players who nearly slam into beginners because they're going too darn fast. The dad in this story experienced something similar with his son while skiing, and when he reported the reckless skier to the proper authorities, he got an earful.

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    Cheezburger Image 10461897728
    via Getty Images (Unsplash+)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    AITA for calling ski patrol on a guy after he hit my son with his skis?

    My son (11M) and I (44M) recently booked a trip to go skiing in Colorado. It was my son's first time skiing, but he had seen a lot of skiing videos on YouTube, and he seemed really excited for the trip. We also live in Florida, so this is not the trip you can just go and do whenever you like (we are not rich). I grew up in Utah and I loved skiing when I was younger, and I would say I'm
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    an expert on the mountain. The first day goes all good, and my son really enjoyed skiing for the first time, even though he fell a lot, lol. I made sure to be as supportive and caring as possible, even when he was struggling, because I wanted to make this as fun an experience as possible for him. However, on the second day of skiing, he says he's finally ready to ski down the whole
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    mountain, and so we take the lift to the top. Luckily, there was a way to get down the mountain while only staying on green level trails, so we took that way.
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    via Greg Rosenke

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    My son is having a blast, when all of a sudden, this guy in his 20s careens into my son from behind going on insane speeds, wiping them both out. My son immediately started crying and came running to me after he got his skis off, and once he calmed down, he ran to the lodge where my wife was, and she decided to take him to the doctor's office. I immediately confront the guy for
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    being so reckless, and he simply says that I should have been paying better attention to my kid, and then he rode off. That was the final straw for me, and I called the ski patrol number in the app and told the guy the situation and what the skier was wearing, and they told me they would find him and kick him out. Later on, I saw him getting escorted out of the park by two ski patrol officers,
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    and when he saw me, he immediately started cursing me out and calling me a horrible dad. I tried to ignore it, but now I'm second guessing myself if I overreacted. So, AITA?
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    Cheezburger Image 10461908480
    via Ryan Snaadt

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    CrimsonKnight_004 NTA - Green trails are specifically beginner friendly. Anyone who knows slopes would know that the path will be filled with kids and people still unsteady on their skis. I've never even been on the slopes and I know that. He definitely needed to be more mindful, and should've had the decency to at least apologize for potentially seriously injuring a kid.
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    The authorities at the lodge knew he was reckless and dangerous, which is why they escorted him out. He shouldn't be there if he's going to endanger other guests, especially kids. They don't need a walking (well, skiing) lawsuit-int-the-making on the grounds. I hope your son is okay and that this doesn't turn him off skiing! You're a good parent.
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    SmoothBrainedLizard • 17h ago Literally none of that matters. One of the first rules of the mountain is watch what is in front of you, and the person that is in front always has the right of way. Doesn't matter if you are on the kiddie slope or a double black.
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    i_was_a_person_once And another one of the main rules is to always maintain a safe speed, meaning if you can't stop to avoid a collision, you're going too fast. So -down hill skier has the right of way -and maintain control of your speed and course, and be able to stop or avoid people and objects
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    Both of these are on the dude that got kicked out. More of this kind of enforcement should happen to keep the runs safe. I've seen too many "bad on green and blues bombing down the run in an unsafe way. If you're so good you can't go at a slower more appropriate for the environment speed, go be a bad aon a black NTA
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    Busydaydreamer A137 Also it is just common rule of society that if you bump into someone, you are at fault.
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    Tinychair445 There's no excuse for rudeness or (misappropriated) righteous indignation. If he did it on accident, he should be (effusively) apologetic and ensured your child was ok. I'm sorry that happened
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    No-Satisfaction5636 NTA. A new friend's husband (skiing >60 yrs) was hit by a teen skiing in Colorado. The kid took off. Her husband is still having medical testing 10 months later related to traumatic brain injury. Obviously they have no way to hold this little b rd culpable for his actions. I only wish they contacted law enforcement at the time.
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    ZugTheMegasaurus I live in Colorado and a lot of the ski areas I've been to also prohibit fast skiing on most of the slopes for exactly this reason. If there are a ton of people (most of whom are not expert skiers), this sort of accident is inevitable. There are often exceptions where they designate certain areas for that kind of
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    skiing, but usually at a minimum, greens/blues and anywhere in sight of the lodge are off-limits. Honestly though, if somebody doesn't have enough control to avoid obliterating a child on a green slope, they probably shouldn't be skiing that fast at all. Just asking for a broken neck.
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    Money-Possibility 606 NTA. Thank you for doing that. This could have been so much worse. It's a green trail. That dude should have known better. I don't even know what he means by you should have been watching your kid... you WERE watching your kid. You watched him get rammed into by this a_h_le. How could you have prevented what happened, at all? He's
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    the guy who came up behind your son, at unreasonable speed. If you were any closer to your son, you would have been hit too. That guy's just lashing out and refusing to take any responsibility for his actions. You did the right thing. What if he had hit into an even smaller child? You're all lucky this wasn't so much worse.
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    shelwood46 I'd also add the most resorts have video feeds on all the slopes. So they almost certainly watched what he did after the report and that is what made the decision, not OP's word alone. I'd bet the a__h_le is banned now.
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    tinychristmas Speaking of "ramming into," I've lost control on the slopes before and run into a kid while trying desperately to stop. Yknow what I did? I picked the kid up and fell on my side/back, and I was 15. What kind of a grown adult doesn't (at least try to) cushion the kid then furthermore lashes out at the kid and parent?
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    Money-Possibility606 Exactly. Accidents happen. Skiing's dangerous. You can't predict what people in front of you are going to do. So, do what you can to soften the blow and avoid the collision. Even pros wipe out sometimes. So you apologize if you're the one who caused the mess. Even if you didn't mean to do it. Even if you were also injured. You get up, wipe yourself off, help up the other person, apologize, make sure everyone's OK, flag down patrol if you need to, get help if you need to. You
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    thisBookBites NTA. Yes, I ski with a lot of kids. Yes, they can be dangerous because they swerve left and right. But when you're coming FROM BEHIND, you are responsible for not hitting someone. Especially on green trails you have to expect kids.
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    I would say, however, if you don't ski yearly and haven't done it in a while (as it seemed from your story?), you are not an expert. Knowing the slopes and etiquette are a big part of safe skiing and you miss that information and I have seen this go wrong in the past when I taught kids and we'd run into parents that tried to teach their own kids. If you want to give him a good base, I would recommend some lessons.
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    Natural_Sky638 This same thing happened to me while skiing intermediate runs but in reverse....an out of control kid slams into me. I was ok but when we went down to the lodge for lunch, saw the kid getting a cast. Lol You are ΝΤΑ
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boy sports kid snow winter sports good parenting skiier slopes dad entitled family winter ski slope skiing son entitled people Father
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