http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3324566.ece
"A British woman has died after an “innocuous little fall” while snowboarding in the Austrian resort of Kitzbuhel.
Sandra Thompson, 59, was on her seventh snowboarding holiday and had earlier negotiated the notoriously steep Hahnenkamm, parts of which are regarded as the most demanding slopes on the downhill World Cup circuit.
But her husband and two sons decided to switch off her life support machine 48 hours after she fell on a much easier blue route, hitting the back of her head.
Mrs Thompson had been wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, but tests had revealed she had a subdural haematoma - severe swelling at the back of the brain – and could not have been saved.
Mrs Thompson, a former teacher from Chandler’s Ford, Hampshire, was on holiday with her husband David, 58, and their sons James, 30, and Christopher, 25, and their girlfriends.
“One minute everything is fine, you’re enjoying yourselves, laughing and joking,” said Mr Thompson, a managing partner at Southampton-based solicitors Moore Blatch.
“The next minute she was unconscious and never came around. I’m absolutely stunned. We all are. We are struggling to understand how it happened because it was an innocuous little fall, which makes it so hard to comprehend.”
The family had arrived in Kitzbuhel two days before the accident on February 6. Mrs Thompson was airlifted to Innsbruck University Hospital, where she was put on a ventilator. She died on February 8.
Mr Thompson said: “On the Monday we went up the mountain had lunch and went up to the top to do the easier blue run and said: ‘We’ll have an easy run down and just enjoy it’.
“Sandra said to me: ‘You go ahead and I’ll catch you up’. I went ahead and waited but when I looked back I couldn’t see her. My youngest son was snowboarding with her and said she just went up a small rise and toppled backwards and hit her head on the snow. She was wearing a helmet and my son was with her within ten seconds, but she was already unconscious.
“He waved for me to come back and I walked back thinking her snowboard had broken or she’d had a minor fall,” he told the Southern Daily Echo. “But by the time I got there they had already called the air ambulance.
“They spent about half-an- hour with her on the slope, putting adrenaline and oxygen into her. But we could tell it wasn’t good. It was horrible.
“She was always there for myself and the boys. The house feels so empty without her.”
The couple met in 1969 in Cornwall, where Mrs Thompson was born and where Mr Thompson was working on a beach, and they married in 1977. Mrs Thompson had celebrated her 59th birthday a week before the accident."
But her husband and two sons decided to switch off her life support machine 48 hours after she fell on a much easier blue route, hitting the back of her head.
Mrs Thompson had been wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, but tests had revealed she had a subdural haematoma - severe swelling at the back of the brain – and could not have been saved.
Mrs Thompson, a former teacher from Chandler’s Ford, Hampshire, was on holiday with her husband David, 58, and their sons James, 30, and Christopher, 25, and their girlfriends.
“One minute everything is fine, you’re enjoying yourselves, laughing and joking,” said Mr Thompson, a managing partner at Southampton-based solicitors Moore Blatch.
“The next minute she was unconscious and never came around. I’m absolutely stunned. We all are. We are struggling to understand how it happened because it was an innocuous little fall, which makes it so hard to comprehend.”
The family had arrived in Kitzbuhel two days before the accident on February 6. Mrs Thompson was airlifted to Innsbruck University Hospital, where she was put on a ventilator. She died on February 8.
Mr Thompson said: “On the Monday we went up the mountain had lunch and went up to the top to do the easier blue run and said: ‘We’ll have an easy run down and just enjoy it’.
“Sandra said to me: ‘You go ahead and I’ll catch you up’. I went ahead and waited but when I looked back I couldn’t see her. My youngest son was snowboarding with her and said she just went up a small rise and toppled backwards and hit her head on the snow. She was wearing a helmet and my son was with her within ten seconds, but she was already unconscious.
“He waved for me to come back and I walked back thinking her snowboard had broken or she’d had a minor fall,” he told the Southern Daily Echo. “But by the time I got there they had already called the air ambulance.
“They spent about half-an- hour with her on the slope, putting adrenaline and oxygen into her. But we could tell it wasn’t good. It was horrible.
“She was always there for myself and the boys. The house feels so empty without her.”
The couple met in 1969 in Cornwall, where Mrs Thompson was born and where Mr Thompson was working on a beach, and they married in 1977. Mrs Thompson had celebrated her 59th birthday a week before the accident."
