A 25-year-old man died while snowboarding at a Lake Tahoe-area resort last weekend.
Roman Lacayo fell and hit his head Saturday while snowboarding at Kirkwood Mountain Resort and died a short time later, his family said. He was not wearing a helmet.
Lacayo, from Riverside County in Southern California, was an aspiring firefighter. His family said he had just graduated from the fire academy and was looking forward to following in the footsteps of his father, Nathan Clardy.
Clardy never imagined that his son's life would be cut short.
"It's heartbreaking because, as a dad, I wasn't there with him," Clardy said in an interview with KCRA. "I know there's nothing I could have changed, but just not being there with him and just knowing that it was cut short. He had so much potential."
Clardy urged all snowboarders and skiers to wear a helmet while on the slopes.
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