NEWRY – A Massachusetts man caught an edge with his skis and tumbled 1,500 feet to his death Christmas Day at Sunday River Ski Resort, Oxford County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Christopher Wainwright said Monday.

John Gordon Kerr, 46, who was wearing a helmet, was pronounced dead at the resort. Wainwright said the state medical examiner’s office listed the cause of death as massive head trauma.

Kerr’s wife, Susan, 46, and their two teen-age children, all of Sharon, Mass., and Susan’s brother, Barry Horowitz, 46, of Newton, Mass., witnessed the accident on the White Heat trail, Wainwright said.

White Heat on White Cap peak is billed as the steepest, widest mogul trail in the East.

“If you’re at Sunday River and you look up at the trail it’s not straight down, but it looks like it,” Wainwright said.

About 10 a.m. Dec. 25, while starting a descent from near the top, Susan Kerr and Horowitz saw John Kerr catch an edge with his skis and fall, Wainwright said Monday.

“They said he tried to recover,” but tumbled and slid more than 1,000 feet “picking up speed as he went straight down,” he said.

He said there were indications Kerr’s body glanced off a support column for a chairlift, but no injuries were attributed to that.

“Everybody at the mountain did everything they could for him. It was just an unfortunate, tragic accident that happened on Christmas Day, and was witnessed by his family,” Wainwright said.

John Kerr, he said, had the skills to handle the double-black-diamond, or expert level, trail.

“He wasn’t skiing beyond his ability, and there was no indication he was doing anything reckless,” Wainwright added.