Ski crash witness told friends actress fled the scene after hitting retired doctor

A witness who testified about the 2016 ski collision between Gwyneth Paltrow and retired optometrist Terry Sanderson posted messages online just weeks after the crash that told how the actress ‘took out Terry and took off.’

Craig Ramone, 48, who was the first witness to testify last week, took the stand again on Monday morning to confirm the authenticity of the online post – until now only referenced in an email between Sanderson and his daughters – that gave a contemporaneous account of what happened on the day of the crash.

The post was provided to the defense on Friday by a viewer who had unearthed it from an online archive.

Ramone was asked to confirm that he had indeed written a series of posts on the group Meet Up chat referring to the crash in the days after the incident.

One of the posts read: ‘You could not make this up. Gwyneth took out Terry last week. Last Saturday, her son broke his arm skiing at Park City. Gwyneth was staying at the Montage. She took her plane out of Millionaire Airport. What makes me mad is Gwyneth took out Terry and then took off. ‘

One read: ‘Terry was not doing the man thing, he had a bad hit to the head. You do not get taken down the hill by Ski Patrol if you were hit on the ass.’

He then became involved in an argument with a man named Scott who made light of the crash, writing:

‘Scott, the thing you did not see was Terry was knocked out cold. I did see the hit. Terry did not know his name. I asked him and he did not know.’

He added: ‘Scott, thanks for the humor. You’re trying to make light of it. You guys did not see what I did see.’

Ramone completed the chat by noting that Paltrow had been the one to crash into Sanderson.

Sanderson then took the stand where he recreated the ‘blood-curdling scream’ he claims he heard just before Paltrow allegedly slammed into him on the ski slope. 

Sanderson, 76, is suing the actress over a 2016 ski collision that left him with a permanent brain injury. 

On the stand Monday, he gave his account of how Paltrow allegedly hit him, despite him seeing ‘no one’ in the ‘wide open’ area as he began making his way down the ski slope – past several signs that read ‘Slow Down’.

Mimicking the sound, he said: ‘Everything was great and than I heard a bloodcurdling scream. Then boom! It was like somebody was out of control, was going to hit a tree and going to die.’

Paltrow arrived alone for the fifth day of her ski crash trial on Monday without her two children Apple, 18, and Moses, 16, who are expected to take the stand today. 

Sanderson claims Paltrow slammed into him while he was skiing on a green run located on Deer Valley’s Flagstaff Mountain.

But Paltrow says the opposite happened: he collided with her leaving her ‘sore’ and angrily screaming ‘you skied directly into my f***ing back’ at the septuagenarian.

Paltrow, whose penchant for stealth-luxe court attire made headlines last week, was wearing her trademark olive green coat and mirrored $278 Ray-Ban aviators as she arrived for the latest installment of her epic court battle with Sanderson.

While waiting in the lobby for court to begin, she peeled off her coat to reveal a pleated black midi skirt, a white blouse and her now-trademark $1,200 Celine boots.

Sanderson was the second witness to take the stand on Monday morning as the trial entered its second week. 

He told court he hadn’t been in the room for most of last week because he wanted his daughters to be able to speak freely and without worrying they might upset him.

The retiree said he is an experienced skier who had skied two to three times a week before the accident and had never been involved in another crash.

He said he had been skiing at Deer Valley for the first time on the day of the ski smash – telling jurors he had been there as part of a Meet Up group.

Sanderson said he had chosen to ski down the right side of the run to avoid the crowded areas in the middle, noting he had also chosen the spot due to the lack of sight in his right eye.

Sanderson added: ‘I got hit in my back so hard, it felt like it was perfectly centered. Serious, serious smack. And I’m flying. I’m absolutely flying. All I saw was a whole load of snow.’

Giving details of the crash, he said: ‘Everything is black. I wouldn’t know if the person who struck me landed on my back. The first thing I remember is everything is black like I was unconscious. I could hear a man shouting, I knew he was mad. I knew he was close to me.

‘I tried to move but nothing was responding, not my head, not my body. Then it became clearer and I heard, “you were skiing against the rules. You hit somebody. You hurt somebody.” 

I couldn’t move and about the third time he went through that, he was really insistent I was doing something wrong and hurt somebody.’

As he lay there, Sanderson whispered ‘I’m sorry’ intending to placate the man. He said: ‘I’m thinking, I’ve got to placate this guy. If he wanted to jump on me, he could finish me off.’

He said he then heard Craig Ramone, who has testified at the trial, asking if he was okay and looked up to see him standing next to a man in an all-green outfit. He said his vision was ‘swimming with sparks’ and his ‘ears were buzzing’.

Sanderson said he remembered being asked if he knew who he was and if he knew where he was – he said he didn’t – and that the man in green, Eric Christiansen, then skied off.

At times going off on a tangent and shifting on the stand, the retiree said he had been totally disoriented as he got up and attempted to ski down the hill before being stopped because he wasn’t capable.

Sanderson said he did not get any medical care until after he had been brought off the mountain by Ski Patrol.

He said he had no idea who had hit him until later that day when he was told by Ramon that the collision was with Paltrow. 

Sanderson said: ‘I didn’t think it was cool. I’m not a person for celebrity worship.’

Asked about an email he sent to his daughters with the subject line ‘I’m famous’, he replied: ‘My head was scrambled. I didn’t pick my words well. I was trying to add a little levity to a serious situation and it backfired.’

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Sanderson became choked up and tearful as he read out a post on the link attached to the email, that included a photo of the Ski Patrol guide Whitney who brought him off the mountain.

He also spoke of his injuries, saying he had broken four ribs and sustained a concussion.

Asked how the injuries had affected him, he said: ‘I’m living another life now. I can’t ski anymore. I was told I would wind up in a nursing home if I had another crash.’

He added: ‘I’m a much more careful person. I don’t take any risks because I don’t want more brain damage.

‘Everything is backward, I’m building from the little things. Communication, I just can’t connect.’

Sanderson said he had become lost on the way home the first time he had tried to help out with Green Team – a volunteer clean-up group.

He said: ‘I had no instincts anymore. I’ve never been reliant on maps. I’m pretty sure I’ve lost visual memory – I can have been there a dozen times and I still have to use maps to make sure I’m in the right place.

The retiree said his relationships had become more ‘difficult’ since the crash and had made it harder for him to be there for ‘my girls’ who he described as ‘angels’.

In response to a question about his youngest daughter Jenny, who had described him as ‘domineering’ in her deposition, he said: ‘Jenny and I probably don’t communicate as well as I do with my other two daughters. I try to push to keep those lines open but there’s been times when there’s breaches. I just feel like I need to intervene more and helper.’

In the final part of his testimony, Sanderson said he had become a ‘recluse’ since the crash and has lost his ‘self-confidence’.

He said: ‘I’ve been a self-imposed recluse. Not feeling as fun, I don’t have the spark I had.

‘I did a lot of travel. It was something Carlene [his ex-girlfriend] liked to do. I did travel alone to a few places. I have traveled [since the collision], part of the problem is I’m easily confused about things, so I like to have someone along.

‘I get things wrong. I don’t feel secure traveling alone. I have not [traveled alone] since.’

He said he had been in denial over the extent of his injuries and had tried to do everything he could to get better but to no avail.

Sanderson said: ‘It’s just now continuous stuff I can’t get done because I can’t figure it out.’

Asked if he caused the crash, he said: ‘Absolutely not. I swear on my God and on my children.’

Of filing the lawsuit, he added: ‘After a period of time, I realized no one would believe how serious my injuries were. My daddy would say, if you’ve got the truth, bring the truth and don’t let nobody make you back down. That’s what I felt I had to do here.’

Last week, jurors heard Paltrow’s account of the crash – including that she initially thought she was being sexually assaulted by Sanderson.

The actress said she heard Sanderson making a ‘groaning noise’ as they collided and initially thought she was being assaulted by someone ‘perverted’.

She said: ‘He was making some strange noises that sounded male and he was large so I assumed he was a male.

‘I was confused at first because it’s a very strange thing to happen on a ski slope. I got very upset a few seconds later.

‘There was a body pressing against me and he was making a groaning noise. I didn’t know, is this a practical joke or is someone doing something perverted?’

Paltrow denied she had been watching son Moses ski at the time of the crash but was tripped up by testimony from her son’s instructor Kari Oaks.

Conceding the point, she said: ‘I can still watch my children ski and be skied directly into my back by someone and that’s what happened.

‘My daughter was down the hill and my son was to my left, I was skiing and my eyes were not just on Moses.’

At the start of the trial last week, the court had heard from Sanderson’s lead attorney Laurence Buhler who described the actress as ‘callous and reckless’ in his opening speech.

Paltrow’s lawyer Stephen Owens then responded by describing the retiree’s claims as ‘complete B.S’ before attempting to pick holes in his case as a succession of medical experts testified that Sanderson does have a brain injury and it was caused by the crash.

Florida-based neurologist Dr. Richard Boehme also told court that Paltrow caused the crash – telling jurors that her version of events is inconsistent with the four broken ribs Sanderson was left with following the February 2016 crash.

His daughters Shae Herath, 52, and Polly Grasham, 49, also spoke in court – detailing the dramatic personality changes their father had allegedly suffered due to his head injury.

Both women became tearful during their testimony and described how Sanderson is now unable to complete the simplest tasks and is easily confused.

Shae said: ‘My dad has quite a few personality issues, the injury to his brain has caused significant damage – enough to cause personality changes.

‘My dad is very insecure, he doesn’t show it but he doesn’t trust his brain anymore. He used to be able to multitask and do all sorts of tasks and now he can’t follow through.

‘As his daughter, I feel that his life is exhausting.’

Sanderson is suing Paltrow for more than $300,000, claiming she skied recklessly into him from behind, breaking four of his ribs and head trauma that post-accident manifested as post-concussion syndrome.

Paltrow has countersued for $1 and attorney fees, alleging that Sanderson was at fault and veered into her from behind.

Though the courtroom in Park City, Utah, was far from full throughout the first week of the trial, the case has emerged as the most closely watched celebrity trial since Johnny Depp took Amber Heard to court almost a year ago in Virginia. 

Clips of attorney outbursts and Paltrow’s Friday testimony have been cut and circulated widely on social media, while observers have debated the motivations on both sides to sustain the prolonged legal battle seven years after the collision.