California woman drowns while heli-skiing in Colorado in ‘freak’ accident

Calif. woman killed in Colo. heli-skiing accident

TELLURIDE, Colo. — A California woman died in a Colorado heli-skiing accident after she fell into a creek and apparently drowned when her helmet got stuck between two rocks.

Fifty-year-old Mary Scott King, of Huntington Beach, Calif., was downhill skiing with a guide in the Mineral Creek Basin near Telluride on Saturday morning when she crossed a creek.

The San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office says King fell in the water and that her helmet became wedged between two rocks. The guide was unable to free her, and she drowned.

San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters called the death “one of those freak things.”

Heli-skiing is backcountry downhill skiing in which skiers are taken to the top of a mountain by helicopter instead of a ski lift.

Information from: Telluride Daily Planet, www.telluridenews.com