One-time ski champ Boothe dead at 75

CARSON CITY, Nev., Feb. 11 (UPI) -- Jill Kinmont Boothe, a U.S. slalom champion who spent the last 57 years paralyzed after a crash, has died in Nevada at age 75, a coroner said.

hospital in Carson City, but could not confirm she succumbed to complications after surgery, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

The life story of Boothe, who went on to become a teacher and a painter, was retold in a book and two movies.

Booth, then 18, sustained her life-altering injuries during a 1955 race on a Utah mountain when she lost control on an icy bump, hit a spectator and plowed into a tree, the newspaper recounted.

The Los Angeles native had won the 1954 national junior and senior slalom championships.

"To get mad, to scream and holler, to tell the world -- that doesn't get you anywhere," she said in a Times article when the newspaper named her a Woman of the Year for 1967. "You sort of look for what's good that's left, I guess."

Last year, she said her "life has really been full" with "lots of wonderful experiences."