NORTH Vancouver RCMP are appealing to the public for more information in their investigation of a skiing injury to a youth.

On March 30, just before 7 p.m., a 13-year-old boy was skiing with a friend on Grouse Mountain. He was on the bottom third of The Cut, to the left of the Screaming Eagle Chairlift. Skiers on the chairlift would have seen him below and to the right. The youth swerved to avoid another skier, believed to be an adult male of unknown age. As he did so, the male struck the youth with his ski pole.

Police have been not been able to gather enough evidence to determine whether this was intentional or accidental. The adult skier was described only as wearing a yellow ski jacket. The youth was wearing tan / brown ski pants, a white Adidas hoodie with a black logo on the front, and green and black ski boots.

The tip of the adult’s ski pole struck the youth on his temporal bone and punctured his skull by approximately 3 cm. The youth did not fall down and he was unaware of his injury until the bottom of the run, where an unidentified woman noticed and offered help. RCMP would like to speak with the woman who helped him.

The youth was picked up by his parents. He received stitches for the small laceration, but his symptoms continued to worsen, and as a result he was brought to Children’s Hospital.

With the assistance of the youth’s parents, RCMP are making a renewed appeal to the public for information about this incident (previous appeal here). They have exhausted all available investigational avenues, and in order to move forward with the investigation, they need more information from witnesses. They want to speak with the kind woman who helped the young man. They say they want to speak with anyone who saw what happened. They are also asking the skier who was involved in this incident to do the right thing and come forward. Lastly, they are asking anyone who knows the adult skier involved, to contact us.

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact Constable Yushi Ebisawa by phone at 604-969-7345, or by email at yushi.ebisawa@rcmp-grc.gc.ca.