The Kennedys had been warned about playing around during one of winter's most beloved but demanding pastimes, about the danger of mixing impromptu football games with skiing.
The decades-old family tradition was shattered by the death of Michael Kennedy, the 39-year-old son of the late Robert F. Kennedy.He died of head and neck injuries after an accident on an Aspen Mountain ski slope on New Year's Eve. Kennedy, described as an excellent skier by friends and witnesses, apparently lost control of one ski and crashed headfirst into a tree.
Kennedy had reportedly caught a snow-packed water bottle being tossed around as a makeshift football at the time of the accident. He and a number of family members and friends were on a slope for intermediate skiers called Copper Bowl, skiing at the end of the day when conditions often become icy.
"I was in the middle of the run about 15 feet away from him," a 30-year-old New Yorker who spoke on the condition of anonymity said in Friday's Boston Herald. "All of a sudden I saw him hit. It happened in a microsecond. That's what killed him.
"He was such a good skier he was able to play fast at such a high speed. I don't think anybody will ever play that game again. I know I won't."
Dr. Robert Kurtzman, a forensic pathologist, said initial toxicology tests showed there was no alcohol or drugs in Kennedy's body. Pitkin County authorities have said the death appears to be accidental.
The Kennedys often brought their well-known family sport to the slopes of Aspen Mountain and had been told before about the dangers of playing football on skis, a former Aspen Skiing Co. employee told The Associated Press Thursday.
"They used to play football on the slopes. They've done it in the past," the source said, insisting on anonymity. "It's a family tradition."
Kennedy's mother was among the relatives vacationing in Aspen, where the family has been coming since at least 1962, when Robert F. Kennedy came to the resort for a speech.
It wasn't clear whether she witnessed her son's accident.
The accident happened after the resort's lifts had closed for the day and skiers made their final run to the base of the mountain. Several skiers said they saw the Kennedy group playing football on the slope.
"They were just out having a fun time," skier Scott Womack told Denver television station KUSA. "They'd bump into each other, but it wasn't like hard. They were laughing."
Paramedics began rescue efforts four minutes after the accident. Michael Ferrara, medical coordinator for Aspen Mountain Ski Patrol, was the first to arrive at the scene, where 15 to 20 people were yelling for help while another skier performed CPR on Kennedy.
The ski patrol placed a collar around Kennedy's neck and immobilized him on a backboard. He was taken down the mountain on a toboggan as darkness fell.
On the way down, paramedics lost his pulse and began administering CPR again. Ferrara said Kennedy regained his pulse at Aspen Valley Hospital, but he died about 90 minutes after the accident.
His body was taken to Hyannis Port, Mass., on Thursday, where grieving family members prepared for another funeral.
In a scene eerily reminiscent of his father helping hand off the casket of President John F. Kennedy from Air Force One following his assassination in 1963, Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, D-Mass., climbed aboard the jet and passed a body bag bearing his brother to waiting hands.
Then, as they had done so many times before, the Kennedys went to their seaside compound to seek privacy amid the dunes and sea grass. An American flag flew at half-staff.
A private wake was scheduled Friday in the home used by his mother. A private funeral Mass is scheduled for Saturday morning at Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville, followed by a burial service at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline.