A Corona family is mourning the death of a 41-year-old husband and father who was killed in a tragic snowboarding accident at Mountain High.
Joel Vitangeli lost his life while snowboarding around last Wednesday.
“He was an angel, from heaven on Earth,” Shirley Vitangeli told Eyewitness News. She described her husband as a shining light.
Shirley said snowboarding was Joel’s passion.
“He was so good at it,” she said. “It was his happy place.”
Joel’s friend Sebastian Gonzalez was there when it happened. He said Joel lost control and crashed into a support tower for one of the chairlifts.
“I don’t know. He lost control or something and he ended up hitting the pole,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez said his friend was unconscious, although he overheard members of the ski patrol saying he still had a pulse. He was rushed to the bottom of the slope to the ski patrol office, where they were met by members of the San Bernardino County Fire Department.
A department spokesperson said that firefighters arrived at the resort at 11:03 a.m. and began life saving measures immediately. But Vitangeli was pronounced deceased at 11:39 a.m.