Video Captures Skier Nearly Landing on Child at Purgatory Resort

A mid-air flatspin 360 by Durango skier Dave Sugnet turned into a near-disaster at Purgatory Resort's Pitchfork terrain park on March 21, when a child on a snowboard wandered into the landing zone while Sugnet was already airborne. Sugnet avoided the collision by spreading his legs and straddling the young rider in a split-second maneuver that the internet has now watched more than 3 million times.

Sugnet's friend Ned Daly, known locally as Shred Ned, was filming from alongside the jump line when the close call unfolded. "I was filming skier Dave Sugnet through the jump line in the terrain park, and he was miraculously and heroically able to avoid colliding with a kid in the blind spot of the landing," Daly told Storyful.

The sequence began with Sugnet clearing a rail and a jump in the park's freestyle section before launching into the flatspin 360, a trick combining a 360-degree rotation with an off-axis flip. Just as he left the lip of the jump, the child, riding a snowboard, passed beneath the jump directly into the landing zone. With a combination of lightning-fast reflexes and dumb luck, Sugnet was able to spread his legs and straddle the young snowboarder. Blind landings are a defining feature of large terrain parks like the Pitchfork, which serves as Purgatory's most advanced freestyle zone, with gap jumps, tabletops, and big air features.

CBS's "Inside Edition" picked up the story and reported the video had accumulated more than 3 million views; ABC affiliates in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston broadcast the footage as well.

The near-miss has sharpened debate over terrain park safety conventions and parental supervision in freestyle zones. The National Ski Areas Association's Park SMART safety initiative calls for riders to "always look before you drop," but that standard is difficult to apply when landing zones are not visible from the takeoff point, as is commonly the case in large terrain parks. Under Colorado's Ski Safety Act, jumps and freestyle terrain are explicitly listed as inherent dangers of the sport.

Neither Sugnet nor the child was reported injured. The Pitchfork remains one of the busiest advanced features on Purgatory's mountain, served directly by the Engineer chairlift, and the incident arrives in the final weeks of the spring ski season with the resort's terrain parks still in operation.