A 22-year-old Australian travel agent who friends described as "always the life of the party" has died tobogganing on a popular slope in Canada.
Witnesses say Mitch Lawry, who worked at a Flight Centre in Edmonton, suffered life-threatening injuries when he hit a tree at the Edmonton Ski Club.
"I know that up until the point he passed away, he would have been smiling and laughing," Brenton Cooney, Lawry's roommate and work colleague, told CBC Radio Canada.
"It's very difficult to comprehend.
"Mitch was an absolute gentleman, he was always smiling, he was always the life of the party."
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Lawry, from the NSW Riverina town of Mullengandra, was pronounced dead in hospital and Edmonton police spokesman Scott Pattison said "it appears it was just a sad, tragic event".
He began work at the Flight Centre in November.
"Mitch was a pretty special person," Flight Centre colleague Daniel Pelchat told the Edmonton Journal.
"He loved life, he lived life."
