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SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah family said they have been "blown away" by the support they've received after a ski instructor ended up in a coma following an accident on the slopes.
Casey Fehlberg, a 30-year-old part-time instructor at Park City Mountain Resort, was snowboarding with friends in Park City Saturday morning when an attempt at a table top jump went wrong, according to his brother Marc Fehlberg.
"Unfortunately nobody actually saw the fall, but what his friends think happened is that he caught an edge on his snowboard going off of the jump, and it threw him off balance and he overshot the landing," Marc Fehlberg said.
When the snowboarder's friends found him, Casey Fehlberg was unconscious. It appears he landed on his head, face first. He was transported to University of Utah Hospital by a medical helicopter, where he remains in a medically-induced coma.
His family said the doctor's top priority right now is keeping his intracranial pressure within normal ranges to prevent brain damage. At this point, they don't know what damage was sustained as a result of the accident.
What they do know is that Casey Fehlberg has a long road ahead of him. Since he wasn't covered by insurance at the time of his accident, friends and family have rallied together to help cover costs. A GoFundMe campaign* raised over $40,000 as of Thursday morning.
"That's certainly a big concern," Marc Fehlberg said. "We wish that we could just focus on his rehabilitation and getting him back to health, but the reality of the situation is there will come a day of reckoning, and he will have a lot of medical bills to pay."
Casey Fehlberg's brother described him as a renaissance man with an infectious personality. He started picking up tricks as a child on the family's trampoline in the backyard and then took it to the ground, learning how to tumble while developing other talents like riding the unicycle, snowboarding and skiing.
While serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Japan, Casey Fehlberg decided he wanted to become the mascot for Brigham Young University. He practiced handstands and pushups every day during morning exercises and made the Cosmo team after returning home.
"He did a lot of really cool things that I don't think any Cosmo has ever done before or since," Marc Fehlberg said. "I think the one that is pretty cool is he walked on his hands from the top of the Marriott Center all the way to the basketball gym floor on his hands in costume. It's the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen."
Casey Fehlberg simultaneously pursued his loves of action and music. In addition to filling the role of Cosmo for a year, he was also a member of BYU's Men's Chorus.
His brother said he loves to be outdoors, doing things like hiking, biking and cycling. One of his biggest passions is jumping off of stuff and flying through the air.
"He really has a knack for it," Marc Fehlberg said. "He does crazy stuff. It's the stuff you see like in crazy snowboarding and skiing videos. He just always finds his feet, or at least always had seemed to in the past. Despite all of the crazy stuff that he does and I've seen him do, he would've still been one of the last people I would have thought would get hurt like this just because he is so coordinated and good at it."
Among his family, Casey Fehlberg is known as "funcle Casey" because of his close relationship with nieces and nephews who adore him, according to his brother.
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