Skier Narrowly Avoids Child Mid-Air, Stunning Video Draws Millions of Views

The flatspin 360 was going clean. Durango skier Dave Sugnet had already worked through a rail and a jump in Purgatory Resort's Pitchfork terrain park on March 21, pulling off the combination of a full rotation and off-axis flip with practiced precision. Then, somewhere between launch and landing, a young snowboarder drifted into the blast zone below.

What happened next has been watched more than 3 million times. Sugnet, a former youth freeride skiing coach, spotted the child and threw a spread eagle mid-air, straddling the snowboarder and landing cleanly on either side. Nobody went to the hospital.

"Both mine and the kid's guardian angels were looking out for us," Sugnet said. "I'm so grateful nobody was hurt."

Ned Daly, known in the Durango freestyle community as "Shred Ned," was behind the camera filming Sugnet through the jump line when it unfolded. "This was one of those weird situations where I couldn't see the snowboarder until the last second," Daly said. "We are very thankful everyone came out okay." The footage accumulated over 130,000 Instagram likes and drew coverage from CBS's Inside Edition and ABC affiliates in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston.

The incident cuts to a tension every park rider knows: in a terrain park, right-of-way belongs to the rider in the air, not the skier approaching from above. There is no course correction once you leave the lip of a jump. Sugnet framed it plainly: "They say that the flowing rider has more of the right of way. But it's not like the flowing rider should be entitled to do whatever they want and endanger people, of course. So there should be awareness on both sides."

Purgatory Resort spokesperson Ericksen noted that the resort follows the SMART safety framework at each terrain park entrance, covering principles like starting small, making a plan, and always looking before dropping in. The resort's position is that riders are individually responsible for choosing terrain appropriate to their ability and staying aware of their surroundings.

That self-policing model comes under pressure every time footage like this goes viral. A University of Washington study found that 26.7 percent of all ski and snowboard injuries occur in terrain parks, with head injuries 31 percent more likely and back injuries 96 percent more likely than on regular slopes. Colorado emergency rooms treat more than 3,000 skiing injuries per season, roughly 12 percent involving the head. The state recorded at least 13 ski-related deaths in the 2024-25 season, running at nearly double the national fatality rate per million skier visits.

There is no public accounting of how many of those injuries trace specifically to terrain parks. A 2021 bill authored by state senator Jessie Danielson that would have required annual injury reporting from Colorado ski resorts was defeated, leaving Purgatory and every other resort in the state free from any obligation to release that data.

Park veterans and safety advocates have long pushed for physical separation between beginner and advanced freestyle zones, netting around landing areas, and consistent patrol presence at jump entries in large parks where the lip of the jump fully obscures the landing. Daly's statement touched the core of it: "We encourage safe progression and etiquette on the mountain." Whether Purgatory responds to the Pitchfork incident with structural changes to the jump line or another reminder to read the sign at the gate is still an open question.