Our two teenage boys were skiing together that day. Around noon we heard our older son calling for us on his radio. Reception was poor but we could hear him say that his brother was seriously hurt, and we needed to come quickly to the terrain park. A terrain park is similar to a skateboard park, but made out of snow for skiers and snowboarders to do tricks. Our younger son was passionate about this activity, and had practiced jumps and rails throughout the year on Astroturf-covered practice runs he built in our yard. But that day, he missed a landing on a jump. Upon impact, he hit his head and, because of an insecure strap, his helmet flew off.
Getting to that part of the mountain wasn't easy. Park City, Utah, is a large resort, and my husband, John, and I had to take several chairlifts to reach the boys. We started to pray immediately. And we radioed down to my parents' condo and asked that a Christian Science practitioner be called to pray with us. Almost at once, the tender message came to me that God, our Father-Mother, was with each and every one of us—right then. I also took comfort in knowing that the boys had a strong foundation for prayer from Sunday School and that they—and all of the other members of our extended family who were on this skitrip—knew they could instantly turn to God for comfort and healing.
By the time we reached the terrain park, medics were on the scene. They had already called for an emergency helicopter and were preparing our son, who was unconscious, for an immediate airlift off the mountain. Within minutes the helicopter had landed and headed off to a Salt Lake City hospital. We were told there wasn't enough room for us to ride with our son. We would have to ski down the hill and drive for nearly an hour to join him at the hospital.
