Sickening accident witnessed in Utah

[tcharron]

2) I know I've heard of resorts using a "cherry picker" to reach people stranded on lifts for long periods of time; how do these machines work, and how slowly do they move?

Ever see an electrical truck? That's a cherry picker, or at east a type of one. Chances are they'd use a mobile one, either attached to something tracked, or towed behind it somehow.

 

[John84]

Here's a question. What should you do if, although highly unlikely, the lift does begin to rollback?

 

[bvibert]

Here's a question. What should you do if, although highly unlikely, the lift does begin to rollback?

I've pondered that question myself. I don't know what you're 'supposed' to do, but I think I'd be inclined to jump before the thing started moving too quickly.

 

[jaywbigred]

Ever see an electrical truck? That's a cherry picker, or at east a type of one. Chances are they'd use a mobile one, either attached to something tracked, or towed behind it somehow.

yuppers, I know what a non-ski specific cherry picker is, I was just wondering how one would be adapted for use on a ski lift rescue. Is it an attachment to a Cat? to a snowmobile? is it its own, single purpose vehicle?

I just felt from watching the attempted rescue that their had to have been a better system. They had 3-5 minutes to work with, and they didn't even come close to making it at all safe for her, despite plenty of responsive employees on the scene in time.

IMHO, some sort of net or trampoline style catching mechanism would have worked best/been the quickest.

 

[cbcbd]

Here's a question. What should you do if, although highly unlikely, the lift does begin to rollback?

I'd probably ditch my skis and jump at a lowest elevation point... and pray that that would happen on a sick powder day. There was an accident not too long ago in Chile or Argentina where the a chair actually came off the cable and started sliding down the cable, dominoing about 5 chairs. Not the same scenario but some people got their legs crushed between the chairs.

 

[MikeTrainor]

I've seen video of tests that someone ran on a decommissioned lift before it was taken down where they loaded up the chairs with sand bags to simulate the weight of passengers. It got spinning so fast in reverse with the safety devices disabled that the chairs were mostly ripping right off the haul rope and/or smacking into the lift structure and getting bent like pretzels. The sand bags simulating passengers were flying all over the place. IIRC the test got a little out of control and they couldn't even stop it once it got going, the only way it stopped was because one of the chair flew up into the bull wheel and jammed it up...

I could not find the video but here are some pictures of the test.

http://skilifts.org/chairlift_facts_eskimoliftdestruction.htm

 

[KevinF]

I could not find the video but here are some pictures of the test.

http://skilifts.org/chairlift_facts_eskimoliftdestruction.htm

I really should not have clicked on that link. :-o :-o :-o

 

[thetrailboss]

Hammer--it was the new Turbulence Triple. It took place in the spring of 2005.

Paul--yes, you did read about my evac. That took place on Christmas Day. I am flattered that you remembered the report.

 

[Bumpsis]

A friend of mine who works as ski patrol/instructor (he's also a rock climbing instructor) at Wildcat always carries a length of rope with him which can be used to escape from a chair if the need arises.

If you know how to Dulfersitz rappel you'd only need a length of rope the height of the chair. If you want to go safer you could also take a sling of webbing (to fashion as a harness), carabiner, and ATC, or belay/rappel device.

I like that Dulfersitz technique. Thanks for the link. That's really neat. I've done a variation of that on some hikes in late fall. I'm by no means a technical cliber, but I found a rope quite useful on couple of ocassions in the past.

 

[bvibert]

I could not find the video but here are some pictures of the test.

http://skilifts.org/chairlift_facts_eskimoliftdestruction.htm

Yup, that's the test I was talking about. We only watched that parts about the roll back though. The fire test would be interesting to see...

 

[jaywbigred]

I uploaded my photos. Here she is hanging. Unfortunately, my video does not show much more than this, and is not as zoomed in.

 

[MarkC]

I've seen video of tests that someone ran on a decommissioned lift before it was taken down where they loaded up the chairs with sand bags to simulate the weight of passengers. It got spinning so fast in reverse with the safety devices disabled that the chairs were mostly ripping right off the haul rope and/or smacking into the lift structure and getting bent like pretzels. The sand bags simulating passengers were flying all over the place. IIRC the test got a little out of control and they couldn't even stop it once it got going, the only way it stopped was because one of the chair flew up into the bull wheel and jammed it up...

That is a great video. It shows lifties all of the potentail hazzards that can happen on a chair lift. If I remember correctly all lift operators must see the rollback portion.

 

[MarkC]

I uploaded my photos. Here she is hanging. Unfortunately, my video does not show much more than this, and is not as zoomed in.

From that picture the best way to get her down safely would be a wooden seat type device used for lift evac. Most mounatins have this equiptment in many places around the mountian and are easy to access in a hurry. Patrol would toss a rope over the cable with a metal catch that and locks on the cable and acts as a pulley. Following that they could rope up a seat type device that she could have sat on and been lowered down. 3-4 minutes is possible to perform this type of rescue but would be difficult. It all depends on the type of evac equiptment they use and how close to the incident it was. I hope she was ok. A 50 foot fall is pretty serious but can be done without injury. Just a few weeks ago I saw a kid at my home mountain jump 30 feet out of a chair stick the landing and ski away.

 

[jaywbigred]

MarkC , I really wish I had been able to see that rescue rather than what I did see (her falling). She fell sideways, off balance, and from what I could tell, unexpectedly. I really hope she is okay. I don't know how to find out though, anyone have suggestions?

Also, there was a lot of personel there, and she was literally a few hundred yards from the base lodge, so you'd hope that there were decent resources nearby in terms of equipment (though I have no idea where, on a mountain, items such as you describe are stored). An employee did climb the lift pole with rope, but I did not see him attempt to throw it over the cable or anything of that sort.

 

[drjeff]

Could you tell if that was a Deer Valley instructor/employee all the way on the left side of that chair (as you look at this pic)? Almost looks like a DV green outfit? Hope that person is OK, thats a pretty high point there where Silver lake Express crosses over "success"

BTW, DV's maintenance shed is over a mile away from there (located just above the Silver Lake Lodge), so getting something from the maintenance area down to Snow park in less than 5 minutes wouldn't have happened. Too bad they weren't building the lower acces building for the New St. Regis hotel, that's goign to be built immediately adjacent to the Snow Park lodge, and it would have had a crane on the spot. That might have been able to help.

 

[klrskiah]

I'd probably ditch my skis and jump at a lowest elevation point... and pray that that would happen on a sick powder day. There was an accident not too long ago in Chile or Argentina where the a chair actually came off the cable and started sliding down the cable, dominoing about 5 chairs. Not the same scenario but some people got their legs crushed between the chairs.

Similar thing at Big Squaw a few years ago, the chair slid backwards slamming into the chairs behind it before falling off. i think one of the guys on the chair was killed, thats why the summit double is now shut down. :-(

 

[bvibert]

The seat rescue was probably the best way to go, but I still think they would have had trouble getting her into the seat from that position.

I'd like to know when she slipped out of the seat. It seems likely to me that she probably didn't load correctly and the chair should have been stopped before she reached such a height..

 

[hammer]

A couple of years ago at Gunstock, a young skier, 8 or 9 yrs old, asked to ride up with me on the lift. As the chair was pulling out, I thought he was sliding out of the chair before I could put the safety bar down. I pinned him to the back of the chair with my arm. You should have seen the look on his face. I wasn't going to take the chance he was sliding out but he looked at me like I was a crazyman. We did talk for the rest of the ride up .. I asked where his parent were and he couldn't tell me, it almost sounded like they just dropped him off... amazing.

Good of you to watch out for that kid...I think that sometimes they can just take off from their parents. I've had my kids do that but only at smaller areas like Crotched or the Valley area at Pats Peak, and my kids are older.

I'm always on my kids to not sit on the edge of the seat.

I'd like to know when she slipped out of the seat. It seems likely to me that she probably didn't load correctly and the chair should have been stopped before she reached such a height..

Agree...for that to happen, lift operators need to be on the ball and stop the lift when they see trouble. Most are but unfortunately I've seen cases where they're not.

 

[SkiDork]

Actually if it happened close to the boarding area (in hindsight) it would have been better for her to jump off immediately rather than wait till she got to that height.

 

[bvibert]

Actually if it happened close to the boarding area (in hindsight) it would have been better for her to jump off immediately rather than wait till she got to that height.

Agreed, I was thinking that too. Most people probably wouldn't think that purposely jumping off the chair was the smart thing to do though..