WASHINGTON \u2014 A 9-year-old boy was pulled from a steep tree well at Stevens Pass after a terrifying crash that left him with a broken leg.<\/p>\n
Ronan\u2019s mom, Heather Glude, told KIRO 7 they were skiing together over the weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a jump that was like this and super long,\u201d said 9-year-old Ronan. \u201cI lost control after I went over it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Glude says she was skiing right behind him when she looked away for just a couple of seconds. Before she knew it, he was gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard people from the chairlift above yelling something about a kid in the trees and my heart just dropped like oh my god and I skied as fast as I could and I could kind of see where they were pointing,\u201d Glude said.<\/p>\n
Photos from the scene show Ronan stuck in a steep tree well with rescuers working to pull him out. It was all hands on deck.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was screaming. I broke my leg and then I was too scared to remember,\u201d Ronan said.<\/p>\n
Ski patrol stabilized his leg after he broke both bones in his lower leg. After x-rays at the hospital, they learned he brokehis tibia and fibula.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy leg was just like this. And then I laid down, and then everything else was a blur,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Glude praised the ski patrol\u2019s response.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ski patrol did such a good job, both technically and just in being really warm and caring and making sure that he felt as safe as possible in that situation, too,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Heather and her family are well-seasoned on the slopes, but she says tree wells can trap even experienced skiers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re not skiing with a buddy or someone doesn\u2019t see it happen, you can be gone before anyone even knows that you\u2019re missing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s grateful that wasn\u2019t the case for Ronan, thanks to the strangers who spotted him and helped with the rescue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mountain community always pulls together and it was just amazing to see that happen,\u201d Glude said.<\/p>\n
Ronan is expected to get his cast off in about six weeks, but he\u2019s already excited to get back on the slopes next season.<\/p>\n
\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 A 9-year-old boy was pulled from a steep tree well at Stevens Pass after a terrifying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,136358,206332,451,206329,206328,172824,3729,206330,206325,3,206327,17229,206326,206331,206324,452,453,1977],"class_list":["post-436514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-brooks","tag-evans","tag-headlines","tag-heather","tag-heather_glue","tag-kara","tag-local","tag-lynn_woods","tag-mel_thomas","tag-news","tag-ronan","tag-samantha","tag-samantha_amoeba","tag-samantha_mbaw","tag-stevens_pass","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}