James Clayton Brown

  General Notes:

Funeral Services will be held on Wednesday, January 3rd at 1:00 p.m. at St. Alban's Cathedral in Prince Albert. Interment will be at Briarlea with lunch to follow at the Wild Rose School. MacKenzie Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Sunday 31 December 2000
Boarder left helmet in his car
First snowboard fatality raises safety questions, Grady Semmens, Calgary Herald
It seemed like a harmless decision at the time.
But choosing not to get his helmet from his car cost Jimmy Brown his life, making him the first snowboarder in Canada to die on the slopes of a commercial ski hill.
Brown, 19, died of massive head injuries after crashing on a jump at Nakiska Thursday afternoon.
It's a decision that still haunts his friends at the ski resort, 82 kilometres west of Calgary.
"It was a freak accident," said Korry Towers, who watched in horror as his new friend and co-worker in the ski hill's rental shop smashed head-first into the hard, packed snow at the base of a jump in the snowboarding terrain park.
"We've all ridden it many times. He just lost his balance and landed wrong."
Originally from Prince Albert, Sask., Brown and three friends moved to Alberta earlier this month to spend the winter working at the Kananaskis resort and pursuing their love of snowboarding in the Rocky Mountains.
Brown made new friends quickly, said Towers, who met him three weeks ago when they were assigned to live on the same floor of the staff housing building -- making the tragedy even worse for the snowboarding community.
"It was pretty hard yesterday but we've been busy and that takes your mind off it a bit," co-worker Claude Hourjel said Saturday.
Brown, Towers and Aaron Hamilton, one of Brown's friends from Prince Albert, hit the slopes on their day off Thursday.
As they were getting ready, Towers said, Hamilton noticed Brown didn't have his helmet with him as he usually did.
"Aaron asked him where his helmet was, and he said he forgot it in the back of his car," Towers said.
"We told him he should go borrow one from the rental shop, but he just said 'Nah,' because he wanted to get going. He usually wore a helmet, it was just this time when he really needed it that he didn't."
After a few runs, the trio decided to head down the intermediate Eye-Opener run and try some of the stunts and obstacles in the specially designed snowboard park.
Towers recalled watching Brown fly off the table-top jump and land on the nose of his board before crashing head-first into the ground.
After calling for help, Towers said, he tried to comfort Brown while they waited for STARS air ambulance to
arrive and take him to Foothills Hospital in Calgary.
"I was talking to him and we turned him over to keep him from choking," he said. "But he never regained consciousness."
Brown died in hospital Friday.
His parents, grandparents and sister travelled to the ski hill Thursday and have since returned to Prince Albert where a funeral will be held, Towers said.
His co-workers are planning to hold a memorial service at the ski hill Wednesday night.
Brown's death came as a shock to snowboarding officials, who say it's the first snowboarding death at a Canadian ski hill.
"There have only been about four or five major accidents where people have been put in comas or paralysed," said Josie Daub, executive director of the Calgary-based Canadian Snowboard Federation, the governing body of competitive snowboarding in Canada.
"This is the first death I know of. It's very unfortunate but it happens in all sports. There are freaky accidents where people land in a very unlucky way and do a lot of damage to themselves."
Police and ski patrol investigators are looking into the cause of the fatal crash but ski hill officials say bad luck is the main factor.
"It doesn't sound to me like it was a case of excessive speed or recklessness at all, which is sometimes the case," said Nakiska area manager Neil Jackson.
"It sounds like it was one of those truly unfortunate accidents."
The table-top jump, a standard feature in most snowboard parks, is groomed on a daily basis and has not been closed because of Brown's death, Jackson said.
"It's not designed to launch you miles into the air. They're all professionally designed and maintained and there's nothing to indicate there was anything wrong with it."
Signs warning snowboarders that helmets are highly recommended are posted at the entrance to the snowboard park.
Jackson said Brown's injuries would likely have been less serious if he had been wearing head protection.
Snowboarders are required to wear helmets in all sanctioned races in Canada, but helmets aren't mandatory for recreational boarders.
Instead, the onus is on individuals to protect themselves.
"The helmet issue is a tough one," said Jean Hunt, president of the Alberta Snowboard Association.
"The tragedy of a young life being taken brings to mind the importance of training kids how to do tricks properly and to do everything they can to reduce the chance of injury," said Hunt, who has worked at the Ski Cellar in Calgary for 28 years.
Attitudes seem to be changing in the snowboarding community, Hunt said, as more and more young people choose to wear helmets on the slopes.
"A lot of people are buying them and snowboarding helmets certainly have improved over the last few years to the point where they look cool and they fit well," she said.
"It's actually getting to the point where it is more acceptable to be wearing a helmet than not wearing one."