In this episode of the OutThere Colorado Podcast, Spencer chats with Tonette Romero, the mother of Donovan Romero, a 32-year-old who tragically died in May of this year following a 47-foot-fall from a chairlift at Keystone Resort in December.
[00:00:00] Welcome to the OutThere Colorado Podcast. Today, we've got an interview with Tanette Romero, who is the mother of Donovan Romero. If that name sounds familiar, you may have heard about Donovan's story. It's a tragic one. He fell from a lift at Keystone Resort last December and ended up succumbing to those injuries that he sustained in May of this year. Tanette reached out to us and she wanted to share some very important safety messages.
[00:00:30] related to lift safety. We had a chat about it and here it is. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today, Tanette. Tanette Tanette Romero, Thank you for having me. I appreciate everyone's willingness to hear a little bit more about my message. So thank you for taking the time to do that. Of course, and we are happy to share that message. Safety messaging is one of those things that we always try to cover.
[00:00:59] And, you know, often just so that when there are issues related to safety, you know, there can be it's it's talked about and there's a conversation there. And if changes need to be made, maybe that conversation ultimately leads people to kind of consider whether or not those changes are needed. Yeah, would you want to tell us a little bit about who you are and kind of recap the tragic situation that unfolded there?
[00:01:26] Yeah, so my name is Tanette Romero and I am the mother of Donovan Romero. He was a 32 year old snowboarder that headed out on December 11th for a fun day at Keystone with his high school buddies. And he had been there maybe they arrived maybe 8, 830 and had gotten in a few runs that day.
[00:01:57] And as they were coming down the mountain, they saw that the Ruby Express was kind of open. There wasn't a big old line. So they kind of thought, you know, let's get in, get up. But they hadn't been up that side of the mountain yet. They were about 30 to 45 seconds into the ride and his companion felt a jolt or a shift or something in the chair and looked over.
[00:02:21] And Donovan was holding on to the arm bar only for a moment. And then his friend watched him fall about 50 feet. And Donovan suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. He also, it is estimated that he was without oxygen for greater than 10 minutes. And so he also suffered an anoxic brain injury.
[00:02:51] He was at St. Anthony's. He was flown to St. Anthony's Flight for Life. And he was on life support for the first couple of weeks. And then he remained in intensive care for about two months before it was determined that his brain injuries were so severe
[00:03:17] that the likelihood of him regaining consciousness was very slim. And that in the event that he did regain consciousness, what would his quality of life be? And the prognosis was that at best, he may be able to several months to years down the road,
[00:03:44] be able to sit in a chair, maybe hold a toothbrush. Would he have recognition of his daughters? Probably not. Would he be able to speak? Probably not. Would he have any memory of anything? Probably not. And so on February 2nd, we brought him home to where he lived with his daughters. And we were on hospice until May 2nd when he ultimately passed away.
[00:04:14] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, for starters, you know, obviously extremely sorry about the loss that your family's experienced with this tragic situation. Can't say that enough. And yeah, hearing the story from you two, it hits home. And he had two daughters, right? Eight and 11? Eight and 11. And Delilah had just turned eight at the end of November.
[00:04:42] Myla just turned 11 in May. Mm-hmm. And you reached out and you wanted to kind of chat with us about this. That news about Donovan's death broke pretty recently, earlier this month. There was a report published by Summit Daily, authored by Ryan Spencer, on that story.
[00:05:07] And when you reached out, one thing that I think I found maybe like the most striking about your email to me is just your focus on what role Donovan's death might play in safety awareness and improving aspects of safety around riding lifts. Mm-hmm. I think, you know, there's an obvious risk there with riding the lifts.
[00:05:35] And a lot of people think like, oh, well, there's a safety bar. A lot of times safety bar is not used. A lot of times that's not really a safety bar, you know. It's more of just like a comfort bar. It's a comfort bar. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not going to prevent a fall in a lot of situations. And I want to back up to what you said is, well, first, I want to say that I originally heard your podcast in the days of the day. And I think that I was a lot of times after his accident. You had covered it and somebody, your team had covered it and somebody had sent it to me.
[00:06:04] And just the way that you had conversation around his accident was different than some of what we had seen previously. So that's kind of what led me to come back to you. But back to the point of what you said, the obvious risk, that is questionable to me with someone riding a chairlift.
[00:06:33] And that's part of our conversation today is that obvious risk. I think that when people are skiing or snowboarding, I think they recognize the obvious risk around the sport. Mm-hmm. I don't necessarily know that they recognize the risk on riding the chairlift. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I would have to agree with you there, too.
[00:07:01] I mean, you even just, you know, looking at some of the horseplay or whatever you want to call it that you tend to see on some of those lifts. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And me saying obvious risk more so just meaning like, you know, you're high in the air. So maybe that's apparent. But I think people tend to think that these lifts are much safer than... What they are. Yeah, than what they can be.
[00:07:24] And a lot of people tend to kind of approach it with this mindset of, oh, it's, you know, nothing will happen to me type of thing. And then there are many cases where things do happen. And a lot of the time, yeah, there are definitely lift falls. We cover them on a very regular basis. And I think people tend to overlook that quite a bit. I think they do as well.
[00:07:50] I think that until it's affecting you personally, it really doesn't stay in the forefront of your mind. And it's evident in a lot of the comments that we, you know, I tell myself all the time to stay off of the social media platforms and not read the comments.
[00:08:12] But I do it for the purpose of kind of tabulating what the response is. And I think that people do have a false sense of safety in relation to the chair.
[00:08:36] I think that a lot of the comments, because of what Vail Resorts reported as the cause of the incident, everyone's platform has basically been, if you just sit back in the chair, sit still, don't move, you'll be fine. And that's not true.
[00:08:59] It may be true in thousands of rides, but it's also very obvious that it's not 100% true.
[00:09:11] I think just in the design of the chair itself leads to questionable security as far as being seated safely and being prepared and situated and being able to ride to the top incident free 100% of the time.
[00:09:30] Yeah, and part of that messaging from Vail Resorts, just so it's referenced here, in case people haven't heard this whole story, was related to Donovan adjusting his bindings at the time. Was that the case? Yeah, so that's what Vail Resorts reported within the 21st 24 hours of his incident. And based on that, they determined that no further investigation needed to occur and closed the investigation.
[00:10:00] And they were also, because of that finding, they were able to get the chairlift back up and running within a couple of hours of his accident. It has, initially we believed it was just a witness. And then later, I believe the following day, the statement that was released was that a ski instructor had seen him adjusting his bindings.
[00:10:29] The companion that was with him on the chairlift that day disputes that. Had also given a statement to Vail Resorts that day that he just didn't know what happened. That he, again, that he had felt the shift in the chair, the jolt, kind of this imbalance in the chair, and Donovan was already off.
[00:10:50] Um, so, um, I do not believe that Donovan would have been adjusting his bindings. Donovan was very much aware that he had children to come home to. Um, he was almost obsessive about researching safety equipment, a helmet, boots. I mean, he just went down the rabbit hole as far as which the best helmet was.
[00:11:19] And, um, was really kind of preparing to mitigate the risk that he was aware of. Which, in his mind, would have been, uh, falling and hitting his, you know, skiing and hitting his head, getting injured, anything like that. So, do we know if Donovan was adjusting his bindings? We don't. We don't have camera footage. Um, we have two statements that contradict each other. Um, regardless of that, he did fall.
[00:11:48] Um, he did suffer extensive injuries that ultimately led to his death. Um, so, it really, I think it raises several questions. Mostly around awareness. I want people to know and recognize not just the risk in the sport itself. Um, but the risk specifically, um, related to the chairlift.
[00:12:17] Um, you know, I don't know that there was even enough time for Donovan to make a choice to put the bar down. Um, I believe they were still getting situated. I believe that they, um, were still just getting seated properly and getting their gear adjusted and situated. And, um, I don't know that within the first 45 seconds, um, you're fully able to say it was a choice to put down or not put down.
[00:12:44] Um, they had used the safety bar in the previous runs that they had done that day. Um, I think Donovan was unaware of the speeds and heights of height of the Ruby Express. He hadn't been on it before. That was his first time. Um, so, we, we don't know and we'll never know what happened that day.
[00:13:08] He was mid-sentence with his friend, um, when it happened. So, we don't know. Um, and we're never going to know, I guess. And that's really not the message here. Um, the message is really about ensuring people are aware, um, of what potentially could happen. And I don't even, I don't even want to say potentially.
[00:13:38] Um, at this point in time, I'm almost like it's a numbers game. You know, it's just a matter of time. Um, all these people that are so confident and the comments that I've seen and they're like, you know, we get on there and we, you know, we've never had an issue and we've written it thousands of times. And we've never gotten hurt yet. One of the commenters was almost ridiculous to me, but it was, it was like, you know, I, if I'm riding the chair alone, sometimes I'll lay down and stretch out because Ruby Express is a six minute ride.
[00:14:09] Um, they, she followed up with, you know, we've had friends that have even switched positions, um, and no one's fallen. And my immediate response was yet. Um, it's, I, I feel like it's, it's a numbers game.
[00:14:23] And, um, I just think that there is not, there are lots of campaigns around skier safety, personal accountability on the runs, speed control, helmet safety, you know, being in the trees. There's lots of campaigns around that.
[00:14:46] Um, but there is not a lot of education, um, or guest awareness around chairlift safety. So that's what I hope to change. Yeah. And you mentioned that you've talked with some people in the summit kind of community, um, kind of about continuing this conversation. Uh, what has some of that dialogue been like, like what type of a reception do you get from those people?
[00:15:11] And what type of maybe like suggestions have they made to maybe improve this aspect of skier safety? Um, it's interesting because Ryan Spencer's article was not the first article written about Donovan. Um, there were many stories in the weeks, um, post accident, and there were several stories in the days after his death.
[00:15:34] Uh, Ryan and I received no community feedback, um, no direct contact. Uh, Ryan Spencer's article has resulted in several, um, connections. A couple of them went directly to Ryan to seek connection with me. A couple others have sought me out, um, privately. Um, they've searched my name, found an email address, and have reached out to me.
[00:16:02] And, um, several are Summit County residents that have wanted to have conversation about their concern with the culture in Summit County or in Colorado in general
[00:16:21] regarding the safety of the chairlift and the awareness and, um, really wanting to push the conversation forward and advocate for change. Um, one individual specifically has a son that skis competitively and their family, he skis over 100 days a year,
[00:16:50] and their family had a real personal accountability moment when they read through the waiver, really word for word. Um, and then reviewed with their children what the scare responsibility code was and what the contents truly were
[00:17:11] and their family's lack of, um, having been in the industry for as long as they have and as much as they are, um, during the season. So, I was really surprised by the outreach to me, and, um, I felt... It's the first time that I really felt like people were seeing that there was a bigger picture here,
[00:17:37] and it isn't about some young, irresponsible, reckless snowboarder that was up on the mountain messing around. They really have concerns about the culture in the use of the comfort bar. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that's something I think it was touched on in the Ryan Spencer article, uh, from Summit Daily, but looking at how in the Rocky Mountain region, um, that, that bar, uh, which as we noted, you know,
[00:18:06] not really a true safety bar by any means, as accidents can still happen in many situations, even when that's used. Uh, but it is kind of one of those visual aspects of the lift where people might feel safer when they put that down. And I would challenge that, right? I would, I would say that, um, you know, they're saying statistically around 40%,
[00:18:27] and based, based solely on the feedback from some of the articles, I would highly challenge that number. Uh, I would challenge that number just, um, I think any time, and I, and I'm actually going to take it upon myself here this coming ski season to just kind of sit back and watch myself and just look at kind of what the patterns are of usage.
[00:18:52] Um, I, I think it is a false sense of security, but I also think that people have a little bit of, they're a little bit more complacent because there's not red flags blaring everywhere, right? Right, so I think in, I could say from my own perspective is that if I went somewhere, um, to enjoy a day of fun or an outing
[00:19:20] and there wasn't clear messaging about the risks in something I was doing that day, I might be a little bit less concerned. So it's kind of this, if the resort doesn't think that getting on this chair is risky enough to require me to have safety protection, why would I think that there's enough risk to be concerned?
[00:19:51] Yeah, and I think, like you noted, like, yeah, 40%, 40% of people apparently use this bar in Colorado. That's one of the lowest use rates, um, just nationwide and worldwide. There are a lot of, I think East Coast, it was closer to like 80 plus percent, um, if I remember that number correctly. And then, like, some countries, they, they mandate that it must be used.
[00:20:14] And, like you said, even if this is a false sense of security, uh, in, at least in some way, um, just that, that lower usage level in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region kind of shows that approach toward, uh, maybe that lack of awareness of the risk there, just because if people were, you know, genuinely, um, maybe thinking about that, uh, more in the forefront of their mind when they're getting on these lifts. That number would be higher. You'd probably see that loose.
[00:20:42] Yeah, you'd see that, you'd see that use, uh, rate go higher just because it is like that. The only, the only thing you can do for the most part. Um, and it's crazy to me given that, you know, Colorado is probably, you know, the leader in the ski industry in the United States. Um, and then especially being owned by an organization that is globally recognized as the leader.
[00:21:06] And, um, so I, I just, I think that, um, while I do believe that there is personal accountability, I also recognize that as humans, um, we tend to lean a little bit towards like that elevator moment where, you know, everybody is facing one way in the elevator and another guy walks in and faces the other direction and everyone's like, huh?
[00:21:34] Or you've, they've seen, they've tested those theories where you come into an elevator and there's one guy and he's facing the back of the elevator. And then from there on the next five people just turn the same direction just because that's what he was doing. So I think there's a little bit of that, um, here as well.
[00:21:53] And so, um, I have had lots of conversations with, um, individuals that have said they almost feel a sense of shame when they're on the chair list and they're asking to put the bar down. Um, they kind of maybe get some attitude, they get some hesitancy, they get some resistance. Um, and then there's others that have said, you know, we, I, I say I'm going to do it and I just give them a heads up and I put the bar down.
[00:22:18] And then some of the feedback we've gotten on that is, you know, if you want to do that, ride the chair by yourself or, you know, people don't want to ride with people that put the bar down. And from a snowboarders perspective, I, it is my understanding that, um, that comfort bar is uncomfortable and it actually creates more risk to a snowboarder than a skier, um, by using that comfort bar.
[00:22:45] So that in itself, it would lead to not utilizing the comfort bar. Oh yeah. And as someone who's, you know, gone up and skied in summit County many times, uh, you're, you hit it on the head whenever you say that there's a kind of this, this groan that you get sometimes when you put that bar down just from other people on the, on the chair, they're going to have to move a little bit. They might have their poles between their legs and there. Yeah.
[00:23:14] There is definitely like this pressure, like the societal pressure of people to just kind of like ignore that risk. I mean, yeah, it makes, it makes sense from in that regard. Maybe, um, one of the gentlemen that I spoke to that, um, his son skis competitively, he grew up in the Northeast and he said, it's completely the opposite there. It's actually, you're more shame on you, you know, wag your finger if you don't utilize the bar.
[00:23:42] And it makes me wonder is, um, do people just find a way to make it work? Are the chair chairs designed a little bit differently to take into account, um, the, the need for snowboarders or do they have more of a skier population than they have a snowboarder population? Um, so all of those questions kind of come to the forefront, but part of that is maybe Vermont's position, um, on chairlift safety.
[00:24:14] And Vermont taking the position of their guests safety is their responsibility, that they can't rely on their guests to make consistent choices. And they do not want to have any accidents, injuries, deaths, um, on their mountains. And so they take a more proactive stance. And it's been that way from my understanding since the mid eighties.
[00:24:39] Um, is there somebody standing there ticketing somebody every time they don't put the bar down? No, but there is more accountability to the operators to ensure that the guests are putting the bar down. And there's also, if there is like an audit or an investigation or something, and it's found out that the bar wasn't in use, it's not the guest that's penalized.
[00:25:07] It's the resort. So, um, I think that that accountability to the resort leads to maybe a little bit more intentional directives around safety and awareness. Yeah. And I mean, even just having that, you know, more in the picture, whenever, like everyone at the resort knows that's the rule. Yeah.
[00:25:34] Essentially, I would imagine. So just having that more in the picture probably puts that safety aspect and, um, that very real presence of risk more at the front of the mind as well. You know, definitely, definitely. Yeah, no, I think, I think it's a important message to, uh, share for sure. And, um, I'm very, very, uh, thankful that you reached out and, um, wanted to connect on this because it is one of those things that gets overlooked, um, for sure.
[00:26:01] It does. And you don't want anyone to ever have to go through what our family has gone through. You don't ever want children to have to, um, spend more of their lives without their father than with their father.
[00:26:16] Um, which has been a very real understanding for me lately. Um, I've recognized that as time passes and his daughters grow up, they will have spent more of their lives without him.
[00:26:35] And that's heartbreaking. That's, that's devastating. Um, and that to me is even more impactful than my loss as his mom.
[00:26:50] Um, so I, I hope to start some conversations. I hope to, you know, maybe make enough noise that people realize if the resort isn't going to proactively, um, educate around chairlift safety, that you are aware of the risks yourself and that you make a different choice for yourself.
[00:27:18] And again, we don't know that, um, Donovan did make the choice not to use the bar, but I want people to recognize that if the risk is significant enough in the first 30 to 45 seconds of being on a ride,
[00:27:33] it's significant enough for you to get that bar down the moment you get on, whether someone else is willing to join you in that, um, you know, make sure you're making that decision, um, for yourself every time, all the time. And, um, the only way to eliminate risk, um, is to, uh, the only way to protect yourself from risk is to eliminate the risk.
[00:28:00] So, um, I grew up, I, sorry, I didn't grow up. I, um, have worked in the corporate environment and have worked in lots of different safety settings and, um, fall protection is a real thing and it shouldn't be any different in the ski industry. Mm-hmm. Yep. I mean, I would have to agree with you there. Um, well, yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for, uh, sharing this message.
[00:28:25] I think, uh, I'd like to think that people are listening to it right now and, um, you know, it's, it's resonating with them and they, they, they're probably thinking of those couple little like close calls that they've maybe had and, and how serious that can really be. Um, I think it's a valuable, valuable, uh, piece of safety information to share for sure. Yep. And if it, if our conversation results in one person changing their behavior, then I'll consider that a win.
[00:28:53] Yeah, me too. Yeah. Thank you so much, Jeanette. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. Really, really appreciate you reaching out. And I really hope that, um, our conversation here has some of that impact that we're hoping for. I agree. Thank you so much.