JANUARY 6--In a bizarre incident that will surely lead to litigation (or an out-of-court settlement), a skier at Colorado's ritzy Vail resort was left dangling upside down and pantsless from a chairlift last Thursday morning. The January 1 mishap apparently occurred after the male skier, 48, and a child boarded a high-speed lift in Vail's Blue Sky Basin. It appears that the chairlift's fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position, which caused the man to partially fall through the resulting gap. His right ski got jammed in the ascending chairlift, and that kept him upended since his boot never dislodged from its binding. Read More at Skier Suffers Exposure - January 6, 2009
Unfortunately this is not the only incident that happened at A Vail Resort property over the Holiday's Probably unreported but my brother and myself where skiing at Beaver Creek during the same period of time and witnessed two chairlift incidents.
The first was at Larkspur chair when a woman fell and the operator didn't stop the lift in time hitting the woman in the head. They simply picked the poor lady up and put her on the next chair.
The second indecent was at the rose bowl chair. A snowboarder didn't load properly and fell out of the chair after launch, landing 10 feet in front of the loading area. Again the lifties simply picked the guy up and put him on the next chair.
Do you see a pattern here? None of the lift operators apparently offered any medical attention or even a apology during the incidents my brother and I witnessed.
