
PARK CITY, Utah ( ABC4 ) — Two witnesses took the stand at the Summit County District Court on Tuesday to testify against Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow during the first day of the jury trial over an alleged ski accident that happened in February 2016.
The eight-day trial will consider allegations from a complaint filed in 2019 alleging Paltrow was involved in a collision with a Utah resident, Dr. Terry Sanderson, while skiing at Deer Valley Resort on Feb. 26, 2016. Sanderson says he suffered a brain injury, four broken ribs and other serious injuries from the incident.
Gwyneth Paltrow ski accident trial begins with opening arguments Craig Ramon, 50, an acquaintance of Sanderson, was on the Bandana ski run at Deer Valley Resort with Sanderson at the time of the collision. He said he heard a scream as he was skiing down the slope and looked over just in time to see someone slamming into the back of Sanderson “very hard.”
The impact allegedly caused Sanderson to fall face down. The person who knocked into Sanderson also went down and bounced five to 10 feet to the right, Ramon said. He recounted a ski instructor coming up to them after that and yelling the words, “What did you do?” repeatedly.
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“He was very hostile,” Ramon said. “I was thinking, ‘Man, you need to mellow out here.'”
Ramon reportedly only knew that the skier was Paltrow after the ski instructor came to them and said, “Gwyneth Paltrow just took out your buddy.” However, Ramon later corrected his statement and stated that the ski instructor actually said, “Your buddy just took out Gwyneth Paltrow.”
Steven Owens, the lawyer representing Paltrow, asked Ramon if he corrected the ski instructor when he said Paltrow was the one who knocked into Sanderson and not the other way around. Ramon answered that he did not correct the instructor because he was yelling, and he did not want to get into an argument with him.
Tarrisa Carlene Davidson, Sanderson’s ex-girlfriend, said Sanderson looked like “a truck had hit him” when she saw him after the accident. She states that Sanderson’s personality changed following the crash, and he does not feel like who he used to be.
“He didn’t want to do anything anymore,” she said. “His joy was gone.”
Davidson went on to say she was aware of Sanderson having a “problem” with his eye, but the issue was so minimal it did not impede his driving.
“If there was an extreme problem, I wasn’t aware of it,” Davidson said. “He covered it up very well.”
Sanderson is seeking more than $300,000 in damages with the lawsuit. Paltrow denied any wrongdoing and has filed a counterclaim saying Sanderson was the one who actually plowed into her and delivered a “full body blow.”
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