Calgary skier in fatal crash as friends filmed his final run

January 18, 1999
Source: Edmonton Journal
Original story - link verified on August 22, 2000
By Grant Robertson and Juliet Williams

Four Calgary teenagers who set off to the mountains with dreams of making their own ski movie on the weekend didn't know they were videotaping the death of their friend as he tumbled into a snow-covered tree. Watching Saturday from a powdery ridge just outside Sunshine Village's northern patrol boundary, 13-year-old Johnny Nikolic called out to his lifelong pal David Burns after Burns, 15, fell during the final run of the day. "We could see him struggling a bit, but it didn't look that serious," Nikolic said. But as sisters Larissa Toothe and Chelsea Toothe, both 19, and 13-year-old Matt Peterson cheered Burns' run from below, they were unaware of the danger he was in. Burns had fallen head first beneath the canopy of a fir tree and became trapped in the deep powder that rushed in after him.

Related stories: accidents at ski hills