A 44-year-old man from Olathe, Kansas, who died after skiing at Crested Butte Mountain Resort in February has been confirmed as the state’s sixth ski fatality this winter. Thirteen skiers have died during the 2016-17 season.
Jim Bell, a 16-year veteran firefighter of northeast Kansas’s Consolidated Fire District No. 2, was involved in an accident on Feb. 13 and later died from severe head injuries on Feb. 17 despite wearing a helmet.
Due to the way in which the state’s ski-related deaths often go unreported, a Colorado news outlet had not previously been able to identify Bell. The Kansas City Star wrote about his death in February. Westworld was the first Colorado publication to identify him.
“He was just a stand-up guy,” Courtney Bell, his wife of 10 years, told the Summit Daily by phone Tuesday. “He touched so many lives, just with what he does every day, and just would care about people nonstop. He was a huge outdoors guy, riding ATVs, skiing. He hunted, fished and he has two little boys, and they were his world. They’re 7 and 8, and he lived for those kids.”
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