Donkey Kong Alps
Ski or snowboard accidents within resort boundaries are wildly common. From taking a seemingly innocent tree line and crossing a dangerous well, to getting steamrolled by a weekend warrior, there’s no shortage of random threats on the slopes.
A week ago, I came across an absurd story from local Los Angeles news outlets pointing out that inbound ski and snowboard-related accidents in California have gone through the roof. The absurd part wasn’t the rise in emergency room visits. No, the absurd part was that their search for a boogeyman created all this chaos on the slopes, landing on a theory that people have suddenly started “abusing” weed gummies and drinking alcohol. That’s right, weed and alcohol are new discoveries among the snowboard community and it’s the root cause of yard sales-turned ambulance rides (see sarcasm).
Welp, here’s a new threat on the slopes straight off the pages of a Final Destinations script: runaway metal canisters dropped from a resort helicopter. Photographer Štěpán Galle recently caught video of a helicopter accidentally dropping what appears to be a gas cylinder in Aprica, Italy, turning the groomer below into a real-life game of Donkey Kong for unsuspecting resort guests.
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“I was like ohh a helicopter I want a video because I love anything that is flying,” Galle describes. “So I took out my phone and started to record. And after that I see a shiny thing fall out of it. I was like oh some kind of plastic fell off but that was too fast for it and I figured that is something made out of metal because of how shiny it is. After that impact, I was confused and scared it would fall again, so I looked at the helicopter and luckily nothing. After that I shouted at the people there to look out but in my language because I was not thinking straight,” he added. “But everyone was hella lucky.”
Galle went back up to the spot where the canister first fell and grabbed a photo of the impact. Luckily, nobody was hurt.
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