AUDIO: DARING SKI LIFT RESCUE
This happened at Arapahoe Basin ski area in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain on Wednesday. A man was trying to unload from the three-person chair lift when his backpack became entangled in the chair. The chair swept around the bullwheel at the top of the lift and started back down the mountain. Being on the outside of the chair, the man did not hit the emergency shutoff bar. The lift attendant hit the emergency stop, but the man was already dangling 10 feet above the snow. A man named Mickey Wilson, a part-time Arapahoe Basin ski instructor who was familiar with the hanging skier, was on a chair behind the man. About 30 seconds after he unloaded, he realized what was happening. Wilson and a few bystanders first tried to create a human pyramid (* in ski boots!) to reach the man, but the group kept tumbling down. That’s when Wilson – a professional slackliner (*!) who competes all over the world and has won Red Bull events – realized that he could climb the tower and get to the hanging man. He climbed the lift tower and – balanced on his rear end – slid down the cable to the chair, reaching the man – now unconscious – in about four or five minutes. Ski patrolers then arrived on the scene with a ladder, but upon seeing Wilson, tossed him a knife. Wilson cut down the unconscious man, who fell about 10-15 feet. The man was taken by ambulance to a hospital. Wilson said he spoke to the man through FaceTime on Wednesday night and said that despite a neck brace he appeared to be OK.
Side note: A similar incident happened Monday at Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah, where a boy was caught on a lift by his backpack. The child kicked off his skis and threw his poles away as two lift operators propped a ladder up and pulled the boy to safety. The boy was OK. It was the second time in the last three weeks that a kid had become stuck on a lift by a backpack at Sundance.
* There’s never a slackliner around when you need one … until now.
* So in case you’re wondering, slacklining is like tightrope walking, without the tight part.
* I suppose the infamous pinata rescue method is inappropriate in these instances. That’s where you just whack at the guy with a ski pole, trying to knock him loose.
* Too bad the guy was unconscious and missed the tumbling human pyramids. Might have cheered him up.
* Call Shark Tank. I want to pitch skiing backpacks with Velcro straps that open if you pull too hard.
* The victim said that, in spite of it all, the worst part of the day was still putting on his ski boots.
* In fact, as the ski patrol was taking him past the bottom of the lift, the victim called out, “Single!”
* So – who does he sue? The ski lift attendant? The ski chair company? The backpack manufacturer? Let’s open the phones.
* This started out bad and it went downhill from there.
* Actually, the problem was the skier was not going downhill.
* You know it’s not good when you’re on a ski lift and you start doing a Cirque du Soleil routine.
* Let’s look at the bright side: Before the man passed out, he must have had one hell of a view.
