Near miss in the Catskills

I Have never taken Health and Happiness for granted , I know things can happen in life. My wife and I live our lives and have strong faith in the lord. We never worry about things that you cannot control. Leaving our driveway Sunday morning for the ski area Plattekill, I said our usual prayer " Lord gives us a safe day and brings us home safe" Today we really needed it. Plattekill was in fine shape when we arrived and they were blowing snow heavy on one trail. We were excited with the conditions and headed out into the mamade snow storm. Talking at the lift with a patroller he inquired about my fulltilt and I asked him about the trail they wre blowing on. He stated conditions should be stellar up there now but yesterday the trail had to be shut down because it had turned into a no fall zone. I didn't think too much about that statement but soon was gonna find out. My son Derek 7 years old and skiing hard now for 5 seasons wanted to try out the trail where the blizzard was happening. I thought he should be fine due to the fact he has good speed control on the steeps and 3weeks in a row he turned the fastest times in his age group at three different race ventures where turning was the key to fast times. His skiing was fine he just picked tke wrong place to stop and start. Derek never likes getting his goggles coated with snow, so knowing this, his older brother Caleb lead him to the side of the trail just under the guns and out of the way of the falling snow. That is when things went crazy. I saw Derek stopped talking to Caleb and a second later saw him slip fall and slide on his back disappearing into a cloud of snow. Caleb dove at Derek grabbing his ski and turning him from head first to feet first. A brother's love is strong and big brother blew down the trail trying to get ahead of Derek but didn't quite succeed. I skied down the trail to the spot where Derek had stopped on the side of the trail hugging a tree. Looking a few yards up the trail there was Caleb caught in a couple of tree branches. The same tree branches bent down from snowing and put there by the good Lord to slow Derek down and keep him safe. I Believe God bent them over Knowing that Derek was gonna come sliiding thru. On this Day our family was sure Blessed and returned home safe to ski another day.