Corona man killed in tragic snowboarding accident at Mountain High

CORONA, Calif. (KABC) -- 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 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.

"We were crying and screaming," Gonzalez said. "We couldn't believe that."

Family members say they are critical of the ski resort for what they claim is inadequate protective padding at the base of some of the chairlift towers, especially after significant winter storms that brought more than two feet of fresh snow.

"It's a little yellow thing," Shirley said about the protective padding. "And if the snow is high enough, there's nothing."

A Mountain High spokesperson did not provide a statement in response to questions from Eyewitness News about policies regarding the placement of the padding, only to say that the tower that Joel Vitangeli struck did have protective padding on it at the time of the incident.

But Gonzalez, who was there when it happened, said any protective padding attached to the tower had been buried by all the recent snow.

"There was barely any padding. The snow was very deep, and the pad was covered, so most of the pole was exposed,"

Video of the incident shows Vitangeli, who was wearing a helmet, appearing to reverse direction before losing control and becoming airborne and slamming backwards into the tower.

According to Mountain High's website, skiers and snowboarders are admonished to "always stay in control," and they "must be able to avoid other people or objects."

Shirley is devastated over the loss.

"My husband had a family," she said. "He had my daughters, and he's gone and this didn't need to happen."