A Washington lawyer was killed in a freak skiing accident after falling into a 10-foot-deep snow hole.
READ: ‘He is a Living Miracle’: Firefighter Makes Staggering Recovery After Surviving 100-Foot Fall
Patrick Kubin was skiing Oregon’s Mount Hood Meadows on Thursday, Feb. 22, when the incident occurred. Reports indicate that the 58-year-old father and veteran skier plunged head-first into the pit after his ski bindings came loose.
Kubin’s family is devastated.
“When my mother called me and told me, it was most shocking news I have ever received,” Patrick’s son, U.S. Army sergeant William Johanson-Kubin told PEOPLE magazine. “The shock was quickly overpowered by the most excruciating pain I have ever experienced, and that pain has not even started to ease.”
Patrick’s friends and ski patrol workers administered CPR following the accident, but could not save him. He was an expert, lifelong skier and a member of Portland’s Schnee Vogeli Ski Club, Johanson-Kubin, 28, told Oregon Live. Kubin had also worked with members of the U.S. Special Olympics Ski Team, according to his son.
“He was the backbone of our family and a huge part of this community. He just loved the outdoors,”Johanson-Kubin told PEOPLE. “He was a loving father, grandfather, husband, friend and mentor to all. He just loved living every day to the fullest.”
An active member of his community, Patrick Kubin worked as a defense attorney in Longview, Washington, and later became a Cowlitz County court commissioner.
“If there was a community event that could be worked on, he was right in the middle of it. He was very much a supporter of all things community,” Twylla Corrie, chairwoman of the Cowlitz Democratic Party, told TDN.
“Pat was an amazing man. He lived his life with passion, and one of the last things he said to me was that skiing was his passion. So I guess the circumstance of his death is even more poignant, I suppose,” Corrie, who knew Kubin through his involvement in local politics, said.
“As a family we are very close, and know we just have to be there for each other during this difficult time,” William Johanson-Kubin told PEOPLE.
Kubin is survived by four adult children and his wife, Jill Johanson, a state court of appeals judge in Washington.