N. Bellmore teen killed skiing remembered

The North Bellmore teen killed in a weekend skiing accident upstate was a popular, friendly senior at W.C. Mepham High School who wanted to become a teacher, friends and school officials said yesterday.

"She wanted to go away and have a nice college experience," said Nicholas McCormick, a classmate, who said he was one of her closest friends since the second grade. "She was always laughing, dancing - always loved life."

According to a neighbor, Erin Clare Malloy-McArdle, 18, was scheduled for a college interview at Adelphi University in Garden City yesterday, a day after she was fatally injured when she collided with a tree at the Windham Mountain Ski Resort in the Catskills.

She was "extremely involved, popular with all the kids," said Caren Kabak, co-president of the high school parent-teacher association. "This is a very hard time for them."

After word spread of her death, McCormick, 17, said many of her friends gathered at his home and stayed through the night. "We just cried and cried and cried and held on to each other," he said. "It's really hard to be alone. It helped."

Dozens of cars were parked outside McArdle's house yesterday as people walked in and out of the home. Her family declined to comment.

McArdle lost control while skiing the Lower Warpath trail at 10:30 a.m. Sunday and crashed into a tree about 30 feet off the trail, said state police and Tim Woods, the president and general manager of the Windham Mountain Ski Resort.

State police said yesterdaythat McArdle was an experienced skier who had skied more difficult trails than Warpath, which has both green and blue sections for beginners and intermediate skiers. She was in the middle of the trail's transition from blue to green when she skied off-trail, according to the police.

According to the Windham website, trails there are generally marked green for "easiest," blue for "more difficult," black diamond for "most difficult" and double black diamond: "Caution! Extremely Difficult."

After the crash, McArdle was taken by sled 3,000 feet down to the base of the mountain, where she was placed in an ambulance, Woods said.

McArdle, who was not wearing a helmet, died later Sunday of "extensive head injuries" at Columbia Memorial Hospital in Hudson, State Police said.

McCormick said, "Most skiers don't wear helmets. It's important not to make her seem reckless, because she was not."

Woods said that the resort independently investigated the crash and concluded that "it was a terrible accident. There was nothing on the slope that would have caused that to happen." The state police indicated that the ski course was being used safely by other skiers at the time of the accident.

"The Bellmore Merrick Central High School District is devastated over the tragic loss of a Mepham High School senior," the district said in a short statement yesterday. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the student's family and friends during this difficult time. The District is offering grief counseling services at Mepham High School when classes reconvene on Tuesday, and the District encourages students and staff in need of support to speak with crisis counselors in the school."

Many of her friends turned their Facebook profile pictures into an impromptu memorial for McArdle, and her smiling face emerged again and again on the networking site.

She was planning to be a teacher and helped raise her much younger siblings, said neighbor Liz Grasso. "She baby-sat all the kids" in the neighborhood, Grasso said. "They're a nice family, and she was always doing her thing, just going out and going to school. Just growing up."

With Jo Napolitano

and Bill Mason