8-Year-Old Had No Helmet On In Fatal CT Skiing Mishap: Report

SOUTHINGTON, CT — A police report on a fatal skiing accident at Mount Southington shows an 8-year-old entering a halfpipe without a helmet and hitting his head after slipping.

The heavily redacted report was released by Southington police on Monday.

The incident took place at 3:13 p.m. on Feb. 19. When police arrived, the boy was laying on the ground, being attended to by ski patrollers and an emergerncy medical crew, according to a report. A family member was also present. The boy was eventually transported to an area hospital.

Police were told the boy was in the process of dropping into a halfpipe that had an "entry" of 3 to 4 feet, according to a report. The boys legs and skis, "came out from underneath him" and he hit his head on the inside of the pipe, according to a report. The pipe was located at the Laurel section of the mountain, near the summit, according to a report.

Police said in an initial report that the boy later died at an area hospital.

The boy was not named in the report released Monday. He was identified by an obituary and a police source as 8-year-old Logan Murphy Mengold of Southbury.

Before the Mount Southington incident, the last fatal accident at a Conneticut snow sports area was in February of 2017, when a Brookfield woman died after a collision at Mohawk Mountain.

Skiing and snowboarding helmets are not required by state law. One mountain in Connecticut — Powder Ridge in Middlefield — does require them. Safety ctiteria are posted at the entrance to terrain parks, in which halfpipes are located.

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