A University of Colorado student is in critical condition and on the verge of being taken off life support after a skiing accident at Eldora Mountain Resort last week.

Eldora’s ski patrol was called about a 26-year-old man who collided with a tree without a helmet at 3:45 p.m. Dec. 4, said Sam Bass, a spokesman with Eldora. The skier was airlifted to Boulder Community Health’s Foothills Hospital in critical condition.

The skier has been identified by friends and family in a series of online posts to caringbridge.org as Bill Brockmueller. The posts said Brockmueller sustained serious head, back and leg injuries, and was placed in a medically-induced coma while doctors tried to reduce brain swelling.

But according to the post, the family made the decision over the weekend to take Brockmueller off of life support.

“Unfortunately, Bill’s brain injury was so extensive that the doctors have informed the family that the damage is too far gone for recovery,” wrote Emily Crider, Brockmueller’s campus minister at CU. “The skilled medical team and family have chosen to withdraw care within the next day or so and is beginning to process their tremendous grief.”

In the most recent post on Sunday, Crider wrote that Brockmueller had been taken off the drugs used to relax his muscles during surgery but was still on a ventilator.

“It’s been a rollercoaster these last few days as they determine how to hold the tension of a profound faith and hope for the miraculous, while also coping with the clinical realities of Billy’s condition,” Crider wrote of the family. “It is so difficult to know how to weigh these decisions but the appropriate time has come not to intervene with full-on treatment. Billy will have another night on the ventilator to see if any purposeful movement will happen and the family will take it a day at a time.

“Because the doctors have been clear that Billy’s brain injury will likely lead to a vegetative state if Billy survives, the Brockmuellers will have to determine the right next steps as the next few days unfold. If Billy’s condition gets to a point where it is deemed appropriate to remove the ventilator, the Brockmuellers will wait for nature to take its course and for God to peacefully take Billy in His time.”

CU spokesman Ryan Huff said Brockmueller is a physics graduate student at the university.

Mitchell Byars: 303-473-1329, byarsm@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/mitchellbyars