Conflicting reports emerge over weekend skier death at Attitash

By Casey Conley

A skiing trip turned fatal for a Massachusetts man at Attitash Mountain Saturday, but officials at the resort are questioning reports that the man was killed after colliding with a tree.The Associated Press reported Monday that Richard Warren, 72, of Centerville, Mass., was skiing with friends at Attitash when he hit a patch of ice and veered off-trail, striking a tree. Douglas Warren, the source of the information and Richard Warren's son, was originally quoted in the Cape Cod Times. As of press time, attempts to contact the Warren family to confirm the story were unsuccessful. Kent Graham, general manager at Attitash, questions the family's account. "I have no idea where that came from, because there were no witnesses," Graham said by telephone on Monday. Graham said Warren was skiing with friends when he reportedly ventured ahead of his group and disappeared off Tim's Trauma, an expert trail. Warren's friends reportedly noticed his ski poles near the edge of the trail and quickly skied down to alert ski patrollers, Graham said. When ski patrol arrived, Graham said, "(Warren) was off the trail and he was laying up against some trees. Whether he made contact with the trees we don't know."He was awake, he was alert and he was conscious when ski patrol arrived at the scene, but we do not know what caused him to end up in the position he ended up in," Graham added. Warren was transported to Memorial Hospital in North Conway, where he died sometime Saturday afternoon. Memorial Hospital spokeswoman Sharon Malenfant said the hospital couldn't provide any details about Warren's condition upon arrival or a cause of death. An exact time of the accident was unclear Monday. Graham said it happened "late Saturday morning," but he did not know much time elapsed between when the accident happened and when help arrived. "I don't know how long (his friends) looked for him," Graham said. "It's impossible to know what they did between when they discovered his poles and when they reported it."All we know is that he was alert and conscious when we arrived at the scene; we don't know what happened once EMS took him to the hospital," he continued. Conditions around the time of the accident were 32 degrees and sunny, Graham said. Snow conditions were described as loose granular. Warren, a retired schoolteacher and guidance counselor, owned a well-known gourmet ice cream shop, Four Seas Ice Cream, on Cape Cod, the Associated Press reported. He was described by friends as an expert skier.The Associated Press contributed to this story.