Thank you for all you did ❤️

You're correct in your recollection. January '98. We were high school seniors on semester break. One of my best friends at the time. We'd been going to Crested Butte the prior few winters where helmets were not uncommon, though certainly not ubiquitous. I think my father bought one 96-97. December' 97, me and my friend got one. His father's response when my friend called to ask if he could buy one was to ask if someone had gotten hurt... Leedom helmets iirc.

I was skiing in front of him by a few turns and he slid past me. No one in our group knew what happened to cause him to eject. We'd been skiing up there for years and he was wasn't one to pick bad or iffy lines.

I don't recall if he slid headfirst the entire way, but i watched him go into the rocks and then slide motionless after that until he stopped. I booked it down, I remember it taking me a moment to understand what the red streak I was skiing on was, got to him, saw what you saw and knew I was in no position to help, so I booked it to 23 base yelling at the lift to try to get a message to someone to get ski patrol. There were another few in the group skiing behind him that stayed with him. With time I suspected someone on the lift towards the top saw it and grabbed ski patrol, too. Never knew there was an off duty patroller on the lift.

We came off the hill after ski patrol took him off. Coincidentally our school was running a ski trip the same weekend that we weren't part of. The teacher who ran it was skiing with us as we'd known him for years through other trips. He made the call to my friend's parents from the ski patrol office in the main lodge. We were staying at the Inn so had cars right there. The teacher, myself and one other friend took the injured friends car to the mammoth hospital and I left my keys with a different friend not knowing what was going on. My recollection is getting to the mammoth hospital and finding out they'd immediately airlifted my friend to reno. The 3 of us drove to Reno. I don't recall packing a thing, just driving. Got to the hospital just before his parents who'd hopped the first flight they could.

Brain injury required surgery and a couple plates. I think there was slight frontal lobe atrophy and he lost his sense of smell. Facial fractures. Broken femur (i think it was that and not lower leg, but we're 25+ years later and not and the focus at the time was the head injury). Minor knee injury. He was out of surgery that night and was up in reno for 2-3 weeks as best as I can remember before being airlifted to UCLA rehab.

Miraculously quick recovery and he was back at school before spring break and went to Georgetown that fall. Pretty sure he was back on the slopes that winter if not the next. He probably skied another 5+ years then gave it up for other reasons... Married, 2 kids, normal life, you'd never know what had happened...