Mum dies in snowboard tragedy (From Daily Echo)

Sandra Thompson killed on holiday in Austria's Kitzbuhel ski resort

11:40am Saturday 18th February 2012 in News Exclusive By Luke Tugby, Reporter

"THE house feels so empty without her."

Those are the words of the devastated family of a mum who died after a freak accident during a snowboarding holiday in Austria.

Sandra Thompson was on her seventh snowboarding trip with husband David, 58, two sons James, 30, and Christopher, 25, and their girlfriends when she fell coming down a mountain in the popular resort of Kitzbuhel.

They had only arrived in Austria two days previously and had successfully negotiated trickier routes on the mountain range, including the notorious Hahnenkamm – a high speed slope used in professional tournaments.

The following day Mrs Thompson, who celebrated her 59th birthday just a week earlier, fell and hit the back of her head on the snow, while coming down an easier ‘blue’ route. She died in hospital two days later after her family made the heartbreaking decision to turn off her life support machine.

Holding back tears her husband, David, a managing partner at Southampton-based solicitors Moore Blatch, told the Daily Echo: “One minute everything is fine, you’re enjoying yourselves, laughing and joking. The next minute she was unconscious and never came around.

“I’m absolutely stunned. We all are. We are struggling to understand how it happened because it was an innocuous little fall, which makes it so hard to comprehend.”

David told how the family had arrived at the resort on Saturday and had spent the Sunday on the slopes.

“We had a great day with lovely weather and fantastic snow. On the Monday we went up the mountain had lunch and went up to the top to do the easier blue run and said: ‘We’ll have an easy run down and just enjoy it’.

“Sandra said to me: ‘You go ahead and I’ll catch you up’. I went ahead and waited but when I looked back I couldn’t see her.

“My youngest son was snowboarding with her and said she just went up a small rise and toppled backwards and hit her head on the snow,” he added. “She was wearing a helmet and my son was with her within ten seconds, but she was already unconscious.

Waved “He waved for me to come back and I walked back thinking her snowboard had broken or she’d had a minor fall. But by the time I got there they had already called the air ambulance.

“They spent about half-an- hour with her on the slope, putting adrenaline and oxygen into her. But we could tell it wasn’t good. It was horrible.”

Mrs Thompson was airlifted to Innsbruck University Hospital, where she was put on a ventilator.

Doctors kept her on life support for almost 48 hours, but tests later revealed that she was suffering from severe swelling at the back of the brain, known as a subdural hematoma, and there was nothing that could be done for her.

David added: “She was always there for myself and the boys. The house feels so empty without her.”

David met his wife in Cornwall, where she was born, in 1969 after getting a job on a beach there. They got married in 1977.

Mrs Thompson worked a teacher in Cornwall and Cheshire, before the couple moved to Hampshire in December 1982.

She gave up work after having their first son, James.

They lived in Romsey and Valley Park, before moving to Chandler’s Ford, where they have lived for the past 17 years.

A funeral service for Mrs Thompson will take place on February 27 at Chandler’s Ford Methodist Church from 2pm. A further service will be held in her memory on February 29 at Newquay Methodist Church from 1pm before being laid to rest in Newquay’s Fairpark Cemetery.