Police hunt hit-and-run skier in Italy after girl sees father killed

Police in the Italian Alps are checking ski passes, viewing security videos and questioning holidaymakers in the hunt for a mystery skier who came down the slopes too fast on Christmas morning and collided with a man, 51, leaving him dying from a head injury in front of his 12-year-old daughter.

Arthur Lantschner, a cook from Collepietra in Alto Adige, was skiing with his daughter at the Obereggen resort near Bolzano when a man described by police as tall, in his 30s and dressed in a blue ski suit collided at speed with him from behind, possibly striking Lantschner's head with an elbow.

The two men fell into the snow before the unidentified man got back on to his skies and fled, leaving Lantschner suffering from a cranial trauma which prompted cardiac arrest. A helicopter was called after a nearby skier spotted Lantschner's daughter standing in shock in the snow, but her father was dead when he arrived at Bolzano hospital.



"The mystery skier was not masked, we have a rough description of him and we are appealing to all holiday skiers to help us track him down," said Davido Perasso, of the Bolzano carabinieri paramilitary police.

Carabinieri were yesterday combing the three exit points at the foot of the 32 slopes that make up the resort, which is popular with Italians and Germans. Video footage from bank cashpoints in the area is being studied and hotel managers are being questioned. "The problem is that there are 18,000 hotel beds in the area," said Perasso.

Lantschner, an expert skier who raced in his youth, had taken advantage of blue skies, compact snow and few crowds on Christmas morning to take his daughter skiing, choosing a medium-rated slope at Obereggen. "With few other skiers around, the hit and run skier still managed to strike Lantschner in the dead centre of the slope," said Thomas Ondertoller, a resort official.