Jiri Vorel was skiing the Victoria trail around 12:45 p.m. on Sunday, March 1 with his family. His wife and 8-year-old son were toward the bottom of the run — a wide, but steep intermediate trail — while he was further up, taking slower turns behind his 5-year-old son.

Out of the corner of his eye, Vorel said two skiers flew by him, barreling down the hill completely out of control racing each other. Vorel estimated they were in excess of 70 mph.

While they had some distance between Vorel and his younger son, Lucas, one of the out of control skiers collided from behind with another, unrelated skier who Vorel said had been turning and skiing much slower. The collision, as he recalled, happened directly uphill from his wife and 8-year-old son, who were both stationary as they waited for him and his younger son.

The two-skiers slammed into his wife, Beata, taking her to the ground and ripping the binding and its screws off one of her skis — not to be confused with detaching the boot from the binding, which the equipment is designed to do upon impact to protect the skier from injury.

Robin Vorel smiles while recovering from a hit-and-run ski crash. (Provided photo — Jiri Vorel)

The human mass of carnage then collided with Vorel’s 8-year-old son, Robin, which sent him airborne in what Jiri described as a “rodeo backflip.” He thumped the ground, and laid motionless for a few seconds. Jiri said it was the scariest moment of his life, and still a distance away, there was little he could do as it happened.

“As I saw it, I started approaching and tried to throw myself in between those guys and my wife but I had no speed and I was there with my 5-year-old, so I couldn’t get there,” he said. “I just saw it all happen in front of my eyes.”

As soon as he could, Jiri skied up to his wife, who had landed uphill from Robin. While bruised, Beata said she didn’t think she was seriously hurt, at which point Jiri skied up to Robin, hurt and shaken, but conscious and alert. As he tended to his son, Jiri noticed that the alleged perpetrator was getting his skis back on as his friend stood nearby. They were making haste to flee the scene, he said.

Vorel said he yelled at them to stop. Instead, he recalled them screaming back at him that the crash was somehow his fault, and then they took off. The apparent gaslighting shocked him.

“I have never seen someone behave in such an erratic, crazy and violent way,” he said. “And then escape right from the very situation they created.”

Vorel, who has been skiing his entire life — including some gnarly backcountry heliskiing trips out West and in Europe — said he understands that accidents are essentially inherent to the sport. But this wasn’t an accident, he said. The decision to ski recklessly that he observed, combined with fleeing the scene, amounted to maniacal behavior.

“When I go to Whiteface, I don’t expect someone is going to run over my family,” he said. “And if it’s an accident, I get it, but this wasn’t really an accident. This is something that could be easily prevented if someone could be a little more thoughtful about how they ski.”

Vorel couldn’t understand how anyone could flee the scene from this, especially given the victims.

“Even if it was an accident, you can’t run away from an accident if you know you hit someone,” he said. “And if it’s a child or a woman, what’s wrong with you? That’s kind of my question, ‘what’s wrong with these dudes?'”

The immediate attention at the scene was focused on tending to Robin. Whiteface Ski Patrollers performed an initial medical assessment and began loading him into a rescue toboggan sled for transport down to Whiteface’s medical center at its base lodge. As this was happening, Jiri also put the screws back in Beata’s binding, just so that she could ski down to the base slowly with Lucas.

Jiri remained with Robin, and gathered up his skis and poles while ski patrol sled him down. While Robin’s immediate medical care was the top priority, Jiri said that once it was clear that his son — while seriously injured — would be OK, his attention also turned to trying to track down who was responsible. And on that front, Jiri felt let down.

As the two skiers fled, he wished someone had followed them. He didn’t sense that there was much urgency in finding out who those skiers were, even once his son was back at the ski patrol headquarters.

“They could pursue them, they could ask me for details, they could be interested in the description of those two individuals — and nobody really was,” he said. “I was initiating the conversation as we then got to their headquarters. I was trying to reiterate the story, tell them what was happening, ask them if they could pull some cameras.”

In hindsight, Vorel said he would have chased after the two skiers himself once he knew his son wasn’t in a life-threatening situation. He was upset by what he felt was a lackluster investigation into trying to identify the two allegedly out-of-control skiers.

“Nobody was interested in talking to us,” he said. “My wife wrote them an email and there was no response. Then she made the (Facebook) post and all the sudden someone from the ORDA is calling her (saying), ‘Oh we take this all seriously.’ Nothing happened on Sunday, nothing happened on Monday. They had the emails, they had the reports.”

Whiteface, along with its two sister ski resorts Gore Mountain in North Creek and Belleayre Mountain in the Catskills, is operated by the state Olympic Regional Development Authority. ORDA Communications Director Darcy Norfolk Rowe told the Enterprise that Whiteface is continuing to look into the matter.

“We are reviewing whether any video footage and/or witness descriptions are available that may enable the identification of the skier or skiers involved,” she wrote in an email. “The Olympic Authority will examine video footage, witness descriptions and card scans, when possible, to identify someone involved in a collision who does not stay at the location as they are required by law to do.”

Though a week has gone by, seemingly without any leads, Vorel said he remains hopeful that there’s someone out there who knows or saw something about the crash.

“Maybe someone saw something, maybe some GoPro footage, some account of events which will confirm what we are trying to communicate,” he said.

Norfolk Rowe said that anyone who has potential information about the March 1 incident should contact the Whiteface Mountain Ski Patrol at 518-946-8461.

“Under the Skier Responsibility Code, outlined in Section 54.4 of the Department of Labor regulations, skiers and snowboarders are required to remain in control, yield the right of way to people below them, avoid collisions and remain at the scene of a collision,” she wrote. “When reckless skiers are identified, Whiteface Mountain staff has the authority to confiscate passes and prohibit individuals from returning to our venues for a period of time.”

She added that guest safety remains a top priority for ORDA at all of its venues.

“Through signage, printed materials, and information on the Olympic Authority’s websites, skiers and riders are reminded of their responsibilities under the Skier Responsibility Code to stay in control and ski or ride within their ability to help ensure a safe experience for everyone on the mountain,” she wrote.

Norfolk Rowe added that ORDA is committed to keeping the family updated.

“The Olympic Authority has an open line of communication with the family and remains in contact should additional information become available,” she wrote. “Our thoughts are with the family as their son recovers.”

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The road to recovery

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Initially, Vorel said medical staff told him that they didn’t think Robin had broken any bones, but advised he get an X-ray just in case, which took place on Monday. It was a good thing he did, as the scan revealed that initial assessment was wrong and Robin had suffered a broken femur and growth plate damage.

The family went back to the hospital. Fortunately, Jiri said no surgery was required, as the doctor was able to put the leg in a cast, although he said it will take another week or so to see if the injury is healing properly.

Vorel said that through it all, Robin’s mindset has been strong and resilient, at times more so than his parents.

“He’s amazing, he’s one hell of a strong dude, he has a very strong emotional mindset,” Vorel said. “He’s actually helping me and his mom to get through it. He shouldn’t have to, but he’s tough.”

Even though it was an unforeseen incident out of his control, Vorel said he feels guilt, as a father, looking back at it.

“That hurts me even more, I almost collapsed,” he said. “Because I’m the one who said, ‘let’s go on Sunday, let’s go up to that mountain, hey let’s take this trail down,’ and I asked Robin, ‘Hey when you ski this, can you wait down there for us,’ and he followed through. For a dad, it’s a very hard thing to swallow.”

He said the family is in a tough spot at the moment with the medical bills, and that their deductible leaves them on the hook for a few thousand dollars. This is on top of another ski crash that Jiri suffered at Whiteface in December that required medical attention, though he said that one was his own fault.

March 1 was the first day the family was back skiing together after Jiri had recovered from that. Between the pair of injuries, he estimated the family had lost out on about $2,000 worth of season pass and equipment money they spent on the ski season.

The family moved to Saranac Lake from Seattle in July, and money is tight, Vorel said. Between him and Beata both working full-time jobs and having one vehicle, the secondary effects caused by the crash — such as the slew of follow-up appointments and transportation to-and-from school — are making for a logistical headache.

They’ll get through it, Vorel said, but it won’t be easy. The Saranac Lake Central School District has been very accommodating, he said, and appreciated the impact that has had at minimizing the amount of lost schooling for Robin, as well as his Lucas’ experience at school. Jiri said he missed having his older brother in the building during the school day, and was starting to dread going to class without him. Jiri said Monday is Robin’s first day back at school after the crash.

The Vorel’s two kids were born in New York City and the family made a lot of visits to the Adirondacks growing up. The family is active, and Vorel said they love all things outdoors; biking, hiking, climbing and skiing float to the top of the list.

They’ve moved several times, and thought the outdoor opportunities in the Pacific Northwest would be world class, but soon found themselves missing their time in the Adirondacks. When the opportunity came, Vorel pounced.

“We always were coming up here — winters, summers — from New York City,” he said. “We tried living in the West, and we were like we actually missed the East Coast. We liked it up here, and we found some rental house we could afford, and we jumped on it.”

Despite their setbacks this season, Jiri said that Robin has no qualms about returning to the slopes, and wants to do so next season. Beata said skiing is more than a passion for him, it’s his identity — with hopes of either becoming a professional ski racer or instructor. It’s a huge reason they moved here.

“We moved to Saranac Lake last year in search of a place we could call home and to support Robin’s passion for skiing,” she said.

While it’s a relief knowing that Robin’s looking forward to getting back out there, Beata said that on the other hand, the amount of love her son has for skiing made going through the crash as his mother that much more difficult — knowing that her son nearly had such a core aspect of his life taken away from him or permanently altered.

The family’s love for skiing is a significant reason why the Vorel’s said they wanted to share their story — so another family doesn’t have to go through the same horrifying experience.

“I don’t want any more kids being in the same situation, or some other people,” Jiri said. “Just because they aren’t fast or aren’t that good of a skier, or that they need to stop in the middle of the slope — someone is just going to ruin their season or maybe life? … We really want to make this home, and we really want to continue skiing on Whiteface forever. I don’t want this happening to us or anyone else next year again.”