Local man convicted of reckless skiing
Former Sun Valley ski instructor Peter
Schneeberger was convicted by a jury Friday of violating Blaine County’s
reckless skiing ordinance.
The misdemeanor charge had been filed under
the rarely used ordinance in May as the result of a March collision on
Bald Mountain between Schneeberger and two other skiers.
The accident occurred just downhill from a
cat track that leaves the skier’s left side of Lower Warm Springs and
connects to the Race Arena run. A witness told the six-person jury she had
watched from the lift as Schneeberger skied fast down Warm Springs,
disappeared behind the trees, then come off the cat track and hit the two
skiers while he was in the air.
"If this isn’t reckless skiing, what
is?" said Blaine County deputy prosecuting attorney Jill Bolton after
the trial. "This guy treated the ski area as his own private race
track."
Shneeberger did not testify at his trial.
However, he told the Mountain Express after the accident that he
could not remember what happened when he crested the cat track, but said
he knew he had been skiing in control up to that point.
Following the accident, Schneeberger was
airlifted in critical condition to St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center
in Boise. He suffered severe head injuries, facial fractures and a broken
leg. One of the other people involved sustained liver injuries, a broken
wrist and facial cuts.
Bolton said the severe nature of the
injuries convinced the prosecutor’s office to file the charge since they
indicated Schneeberger must have been traveling very fast.
A date has not been set for a sentencing
hearing on the conviction. Schneeberger’s attorney, Stephen Thompson,
said he and his client are considering whether to file an appeal.
Blaine County’s reckless skiing ordinance
states: "No skier shall ski in a reckless or negligent manner so as
to endanger the life, limb or property of any person. Each skier has the
additional duty to ski in a safe and reasonable manner and under
sufficient control to be able to stop or avoid other skiers or objects
such as snow grooming equipment, vehicles, lift towers, signs and any
other equipment within the ski area."
Bolton said she hopes the conviction will
help prompt Sun Valley Co. to report more incidents of reckless skiing to
the prosecutor’s office.
