“We don’t know what he was trying to do. We were the last ones that saw him go off the mountain.”
A splitboarding couple from Boise have an account of the events leading up to 32-year-old Shea Helmick’s death on February 9th near Bogus Basin Mountain that may shed light on press release from Idaho State Police about the incident.
The Idaho State Police press release states that Helmick suffered fatal injuries from being struck by a Hummer H2 while he was trying to jump a road gap near milemarker 15 but The Idaho Statesmen spoke with Alex and Kim Hoffman who say he wasn’t near cliff that allows the elevation change to gap the road.
There is a cliff close by that skiers and snowboarders have traditionally used to jump the road but the Hoffmans say Helmick entered Bogus Basin Road downhill of that spot by about 150 feet:
“The first thing I thought was, ‘Wow, that guy is going pretty fast. Where he went through, it was definitely not those rocky cliffs.”
Alex and Kim Hoffman did not witness when Helmick impacted the Hummer H2 near milemarker 15 but were on scene shortly after saying the young driver of the SUV was “very distraught.”
“We don’t know what he was trying to do. We were the last ones that saw him go off the mountain.”
It is still unclear and may never be established what Helmick’s intentions where that day but eye witness accounts from the last people to see him alive at least fill in a few blanks as to the circumstances leading up to his untimely death.