Posted on 12/28/2010 12:23:23 PM PST by mylife
Dreamy ski conditions turned nightmarish in Maine Tuesday morning when a chairlift accident injured at least six and left dozens more stranded in frozen suspension.
Five chairs were thrown to the ground beneath the Spillway East chairlift at the Sugarloaf USA ski resort after the cable supporting the chairs derailed, dropping an estimated 25 to 30 feet.
"All injured guests have been treated and are being transported to area hospitals," a press release issued by the resort's management said. "At this point none of the injuries are believed to be life threatening."
Approximately 220 passengers were on the lift at the time of the accident. Using ropes and harnesses, the mountain's ski patrol began evacuating those that remained stranded on the broken-down lift - but not before several of those stranded could post photos on social media sites and call news organizations to deliver first-person accounts of the incident.
"The chairlift was going slow and the winds started picking up," Robb Atkinson, a CNN employee who was trapped on the lift told the network. "It was stopping and starting, stopping and starting. One of the times where it started again, all of a sudden there was a bump and we could feel a jerk. And we heard screams from skiers down below yelling 'the chairs are off the lift!'"
The Spillway East lift rises more than 1,000 vertical feet, depositing hundreds of skiers and snowboarders every hour to the top of Sugarloaf, one of the premiere snow-sport destinations in Maine. The mountain is home to Carrabassett Valley Academy, the prestigious ski school that produced Bode Miller and other Olympic athletes.
"All the workers seem to know exactly what they're doing, it's very orderly and people are just skiing down when they're taken off the lift," skier Makayla Brown told Portland's WSCH-TV. "There isn't a great sense of panic."
The week after Christmas is peak season for Sugarloaf, which had received more than 20 inches of fresh snow in the storm that blanketed the east coast the day before.
From this article:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2010/12/28/maine-skilift-accident.html
Jay Marshall, who was on a lift next to the broken one, said both lifts stopped, then restarted. Almost immediately he saw a problem, then heard screams.
“The lift started again,” Marshall said. “I looked to my left and could see the cable bouncing up and down. I could see that the cable had come off the [track wheels].
“Once the thing started bouncing up and down beside me, I stopped looking. I didn’t want to see it, honestly. It was terrifying.”
That 20 inches of frozen sunshine probably saved a lot of people serious injury. Thank goodness they had the snow to land on.
What happened, too many Fat A$$ masshole and New Yowkers?
Thank God for fresh powder.
“What happened, too many Fat A$$ masshole and New Yowkers?”
Musta been a buncha nigras and joos, too, right Vet? Were you that bigoted when you served? Question: in the Navy, did they teach you to paint everybody from a region with the same brush, or is that something you learned on your Daddy’s knee?
And what’s a Yowker? Did you mean Yawkuh? Please allow me to clue you in: there are plenty of good conservatives in the Northeast, just as there are many redneck a-holes in Iowa.
Life is a bitch. Here you are rich and blowing money out your ass at a posh resort and then bingo, you’re flat on your back in a hospital with your lawyer planning a 50 million dollar lawsuit. It just isn’t fair I tell ya!
Ambulance chasers in six states felt “a disturbance in the force” ...
Especialy when they found out the lift has been in use since the late 70’s
Well said.
Not to mention;
1) There are more fat a$$es in Iowa than NY or Mass
2) Skiing, anywhere in the world, is not a sport that is generally associated with fat a$$es. There are very few fatties on the slopes.
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