Lee Canyon ski race carries on organ donor’s legacy

Lee Canyon has long held a prominent role in the lives of Las Vegans Jeff and Sherry Ruby, with lots of sweet memories created there.

Jeff, who learned to ski on Mount Charleston when he was 12, had grown up and was a member of the resort’s ski patrol when he met Sherry there in 1990. They went on to marry and raise a family.

Playing in the snow was a frequent, much-loved activity for the couple and their children, son Chris and daughter Alex.

“We skied with them when they were real little,” Jeff Ruby says. “I created a harness to hold them between our legs and on the chairlift.”

As time went on and the kids switched to snowboarding, Sherry and Alex became less ardent about heading up the mountain in the snow, but the men in the family continued.

“Chris and I were both pretty committed to it,” Jeff says. “He was good; he could jump and all that.”

But acquiring skill brought a measure of risk. Chris twice suffered a broken collarbone, once at Lee Canyon and once at Mammoth Lakes in California. Watching from his skis, Jeff would occasionally get a little concerned.

Chris, 20, had graduated from a California technical school and started a career in high-end auto body work.

“Don’t forget you’ve got a career now,” Jeff recalls telling his son. “You can’t afford to break your collarbone again — you’re an adult.”

But what would happen Jan. 14, 2014, was much more tragic than a broken collarbone.

Tragic accident

“On his second jump, he was about 15 feet in the air,” Jeff said. “He landed hard on his left side. I went over to him. He got up on his hands and knees and then sank face-down in the snow.”

“He didn’t have a heart rate,” says Jeff, a career firefighter. He started CPR.

“Jeff was trying to resuscitate Chris,” Sherry Ruby says. “He was doing what he could.”

A ski patrol member who was a paramedic, and whom Jeff knew from working for the Clark County Fire Department, took over. An ambulance arrived and took Chris to the mountain’s helicopter pad for evacuation to University Medical Center, where he died from blunt-force trauma.

A few months later, his bereft family again ventured up the mountain. There they encountered director of mountain operations Josh Bean, whom the family had come to know during years of visits, and who was there on the day of Chris’ accident.

“When we saw Josh, he said we should have some kind of fundraising type of event in memory of Chris,” Jeff recalls.

“It was important to me to find something to memorialize Chris and do something with the family, as they’ve been great friends with the ski area throughout the years,” Bean says. “We wanted to do something for Chris and keep his memory alive.”

He and the family decided on a ski and snowboard race. All they needed to do was choose a charitable cause.

‘Life is fragile’

But Chris had already done something that would keep this memory alive: He’d registered as an organ donor. His legacy was to give organs and tissue to help more than 90 people, including a 5-year-old boy who received one of his heart valves.

And his own aunt, Lori Thompson, who received one of Chris’ anterior cruciate ligaments. Thompson had destroyed one of hers in a skiing accident and had been advised to wait for a cadaver ligament. It turned out she’d get one of Chris’, with the help of the Nevada Donor Network.

“They had never done anything like that before,” Thompson says. “It’s wonderful. It’s not about the ACL; it’s about Christopher. He was a wonderful, awesome young man. The ACL was a great gift, but he was the gift-giver.”

“Nevada Donor Network seemed like a natural fit” as the recipient of the event’s proceeds, Sherry Ruby says. “What we don’t really realize is life is fragile. We see that all the time — tragic death. If they could, most people would help, but they don’t know how.”

Honoring Chris Ruby

The Chris Ruby Memorial Cup, an annual event that will mark its 10th year at Lee Canyon on Jan. 11, is an effort to change that.

“I don’t think people are aware of how much of an impact one individual can have,” says Gordon Prouty, foundation president for the Nevada Donor Network. But beyond awareness, the foundation raises funds in an effort to expand transplantation services in the state.

Nevada has the highest per-capita rate of donation of any state, he says.

“Sadly, most of those donations go to other states,” Prouty says. “If you need anything beyond a kidney, you need to leave the state to get that.”

The Chris Ruby Memorial Cup has prompted more than 5,000 skiers and snowboarders to become organ donors as well as raising “significant” funds for the Nevada Donor Network.

Jeff and Sherry Ruby say that Chris was moved to become a donor as the result of a documentary the family watched.

“People don’t realize how simple it is and what an impact it can make on other lives,” Sherry says. “They become aware during this event. It’s also in Chris’ honor — I’m proud of that aspect.

“If one life is saved …”