By Keith Reid, Stockton Record

A Stockton chiropractor who dedicated decades of his life as a University of the Pacific booster, as a youth basketball coach and to local service clubs died Saturday in a snowmobile accident in Truckee.

James Darnall, 55, was with friends at a popular recreational area Saturday five miles off Highway 267 in Truckee. Emergency response teams were dispatched to the area just after 3pm to a call that Darnall had driven a 2011 Ski Doo snowmobile eastbound into a tree, California Highway Patrol Truckee office manager Terri Fisher said.

Darnall is remembered by his friends and family as a kind and caring man who was an Eagle Scout in high school, a dedicated husband to Carrie and father to daughters Colleen, 26, and Melanie, 24.

A 1978 Pacific graduate who played tight end on the university’s football team and catcher on the baseball team, James Darnall became active in the booster club after becoming a successful chiropractor.

“For 30 years, he’s been active as a booster and Rotary Club member,” Carrie Darnall said. “He was a caring doctor for his patients, a good family man and a good father.”

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York, Darnall felt it was his duty to fly east to volunteer his services as a chiropractor. He spent several late-night shifts helping volunteers and public safety workers with their physical ailments.

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