A private investigator used social media to identify a hit-and-run snowboarder who last winter plowed into an Aspen skier, leaving her seriously injured.
According to a lawsuit filed in Pitkin County District Court, after the snowboarder slammed into Anne Cassidy, a mother of four, who was standing beside a lift unloading area, the snowboarder then rode away.
“Ms. Cassidy, who was in shock, felt twisting in her knees and sudden and extreme pain in her legs,” says the lawsuit. “Ms. Cassidy’s knees crumbled like a lawn chair.”
Cassidy is suing for her medical expenses and “expects to amend her complaint to add punitive damages” for her suffering.
The snowboarder is accused of riding away before a friend of Cassidy’s gave chase.
“[Cassidy’s friend] screamed at [the snowboarder] that he needed to wait for ski patrol, saying something to the effect of, ‘Hey, stop! You hit someone!’” the suit says.
“[The snowboarder] admitted to [the woman] that he couldn’t control his turns on the snowboard by saying something to the effect of ‘What do you expect? I couldn’t stop. I was on a snowboard.’
Another passerby confronted the snowboarder, took a photo of him and said he had a foreign accent.
When Aspen staff were later unable to track the snowboarder down, they reviewed footage from their ski lifts, according to the suit. They found a snowboarder with the same gear as the man in the photo — black ski pants and jacket, a black Burton snowboard with a neon bottom and distinctive white goggles with red lenses.
Preliminary internet searches revealed the snowboarder’s Instagram account at the time, according to the suit. The snowboarder posted to the account around the time of the accident, in which he wore the same gear.
Cassidy’s attorney then hired a private investigator, who tracked the man down to Astoria, Queens, and called him on the phone. The suit notes that the man who answered had a “foreign accent.”
“Upon hearing that this was an investigator hired by Ms. Cassidy concerning a ski accident in Aspen, the person stated they were not [the hit-and-run snowboarder], but friends with [the rider],” the lawsuit states. “When asked for this person’s name, he responded, ‘It doesn’t matter who I am.'”
After the accident, Cassidy was transported to Aspen Valley Hospital, where she was “diagnosed with an ACL and MCL tear in her right knee, a medial root injury to her right knee, a torn meniscus in her right knee, an ACL tear in her left knee, a shoulder injury, and an injury to her right hand,” the suit states.
An “avid athlete” who runs half-marathons, Cassidy claims she is now unable to participate in any sports, regularly experiences pain in her knees and “has not been able to take care of her family as she typically is able to.”
Cassidy’s lawsuit accuses the Queens man of negligence, saying he didn’t live up to his responsibility to keep watch for downhill skiers and to share his information with Cassidy or Aspen Ski Patrol after the accident.
