Barbara Lawlor, Nederland.   Last Thursday, June 9, 2016 at the 53rd Annual Meeting of Colorado Ski Country USA, Double Diamond Awards were presented to eight individuals who have made significant contributions to the industry for their excellence in competition, patrol, instruction, operations and ski area management.

Among those receiving awards was Eldora Mountain Resort’s Roman Sanchez, who was named Ski Patroller of the Year. Roman was the first to say the award belongs to the team, all of the patrollers who train together and work together during any emergency or rescue on the mountain.

His award states that he has been a team leader with the Eldora Ski Patrol for 11 years, guiding his colleagues through daily operations with strong leadership, communication and maturity. “He mentors newer patrollers through experience and his innate teaching abilities. Roman also facilitates the young adult patrol program at Eldora, grooming Colorado’s next generation of dedicated, proficient ski patrollers.”

Roman won the purple merit star and a blue merit star from the National Ski Patrol for two separate life-saving incidents involving collisions with trees. He and fellow patrollers, Sam Seward and Nate Reed, assessed the injuries and made the appropriate response and request for resources quickly and accurately and saved the lives of the two patients. Rescues on the mountain involve team effort and constant training.

Diverse life experiences add to one’s ability to deal with emergency situations and Roman’s careers and hobbies have become assets to his responsibilities as a ski patroller.

He learned to ski at an early age when his father would take him to one of the many New York and Vermont ski areas, and he and his brother would take off looking for challenges.

“They would just let us go. Once I was hurt and had to be taken down the hill by the ski patrol. I didn’t think much about it at the time.”

Roman skied throughout high school and college, played rugby and worked side jobs He was a communications major at Upstate New York University in Oswego. After graduation, he didn’t find much on the job market for his skills so he went back to school to earn a master’s degree in bi-lingual education, having grown up speaking Spanish in his home. He worked for a while as a teacher’s assistant in an elementary school, but then his dual language skills led him to join the Peace Corp.

“I had zero interest in a 9-5 job and a commute to the city.”

During his 27 months in Honduras, Roman worked with the Garifuna people, a mixed race which are descended from escaped African slaves and the Indians of the area. He had been chosen for this assignment because of his ESL proficiency.

“The idea of the Peace Corps is ‘to help,’ but I got so much more from them than they did from me. The Garifuna people don’t have much, but they are happier living a simple life.”

Roman learned to get along without running water or electricity in his small, concrete, tin roofed abode. On a strip of coastal beach, he was surrounded by mangrove forest as well as orange, coconut and avocado trees. He enjoyed getting close to the people, stopping on his way through town, talking to people, with no rush to get anywhere. He didn’t miss the rat race of his former life. Coming back to the United states demanded a huge adjustment.

While in Honduras, he met his wife, who was also in the Peace Corps and after their assignments, they returned to the states. He got a job teaching bi-lingual classes at Uni-Hill. The couple lived in Boulder until 2000 when they moved to Ward, attracted by the small town atmosphere of the community. He joined the Indian Peaks Fire Protection District and bought a season pass to Eldora.

At this point in his life, he decided to get Wilderness EMT Certification, realizing that if there were an emergency, he and his wife and son were a long way from help and he wanted to be able to take care of his family. One day while skiing at Eldora, he saw the sign for volunteer ski patrol and thought he could do that, even though he had switched to snowboarding. He went through the process and in 2000 he became a volunteer.

It didn’t take long for the mountain, the job and the people to get a hold on him and he decided he didn’t want to teach anymore. With the “No Child Left Behind” program in place, the job had become focused on testing and heavy on paperwork. He began teaching EMT classes and Eldora asked him to become a paid, part time ski patroller. He was making the activities he loved work together to become a multi-faceted career. He also began writing poetry and read his work at the many poetry readings that took place in Ward.

In his 11 years with the EMR ski patrol, he also helped develop the young adults ski patrol program. He says his accomplishments are not what made him successful at his job; it was the support and teamwork from the other members of the patrol.

In the two big calls that happened last winter, which involved serious injuries, the patrollers had to act decisively and quickly to get the patients to definitive care. They identified the seriousness of the injuries, and used their training to extricate the patients with the best possible care, mitigating the potential dangers before they packaged the patients on the sleds.

“The work we do is team oriented. When we deal with injuries we are a team. I received the award, but it was all of us who earned it, a reflection of the people I work with. I know I can trust anyone and call on them for help. Last season I had an injury, breaking my shoulder, which left me incapacitated for many necessary chores, and my fellow patrollers came over and split wood for me. That says more than any award could. I trusted them myself when I was injured and was comfortable with their knowledge and training.”

This summer Ramon will teach Wilderness Medicine classes and looks forward to the snow.

Travis Brock, director of the ski patrol at EMR says he is proud of Roman’s accomplishments and the entire Eldora Ski Patrol.