Arapahoe Basin: Friend rescues friend hanging from backpack.

[SkiNurse]

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/05/arapahoe-basin-chairlift-rescue/

 

[Mendieta]

Dear all

Another lift incident, in this case with a happy ending
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/05/arapahoe-basin-chairlift-rescue/

From the article:

A man who got tangled in an Arapahoe Basin chairlift Wednesday morning and was hanging unconscious from his neck was cut down by a professional slackliner who climbed up a lift tower, slid approximately 30 feet across the lift’s cable and cut him free with a knife tossed from ski patrollers.

Amazing, heroic work by the rescuer. I expect an overhaul of safety protocols in Ski centers in the US as a result of all the recent incidents. The lift is still a very safe vehicle, but there is room for reducing the little risk there is while riding it.

 

[James]

So what you want is a Red Bull sponsored slackliner following you in the chair.
Is Lenawee a triple? If not it's the Montezuma chair.

 

[SkiNurse]

So, it turns out this is a co-worker's husband's best friend. I know they were skiing together in the morning, but don't know if he was with his friend when the accident happened. She is going to tell me the *real* non-media story tomorrow at work. Her husband & friends are not ameteurs by any definition and have traveled all over there world to ski, climb, etc. I'm def interested in what she has to say.

 

[Core2]

I'm guessing this could happen just as easily with an avi pack as with a normal backpack? Not sure how you deal with that. Guy lucked out hard today.

 

[pais alto]

I'm guessing this could happen just as easily with an avi pack as with a normal backpack? Not sure how you deal with that.

Simple way to deal with it - take the pack off before loading the lift.

I'm simply amazed at the number of people that wear their pack on the lift.

 

[jmeb]

And/or wear a pack well designed for riding a lift. Some packs have almost no buckles/zips on the back to get caught and are very low profile.

 

[Core2]

Creepy, just got this suggested ad for a lift designed pack in my FB feed.

http://www.liftrider.me/

 

[UGASkiDawg]

Creepy, just got this suggested ad for a lift designed pack in my FB feed.

http://www.liftrider.me/

That's not creepy, that's good targeting some big data gal/guy deserves a raise!

 

[Mendieta]

That's not creepy, that's good targeting some big data gal/guy deserves a raise!

Mmm , I hope you just got an ad from a big data company

 

[crgildart]

Simple way to deal with it - take the pack off before loading the lift.

I'm simply amazed at the number of people that wear their pack on the lift.

A ski patrol fanny pack could also get caught on something right??

Third time highly publicized in the past month. Betting a lot of resorts ban wearing backpacks on lifts, all backpacks on all lifts. Not the right solution, but seems like the easiest thing for the resorts to do about it. Even wearing the pack backwards leaves straps behind that can get caught in the worst chain of events.

Why aren't the stop arms/ropes shutting down the lifts quicker? Fear of folks without the bars down falling off on the hard stop?? I guess they could also add a platform beyond the top bullwheel to every lift everywhere so folks that go around aren't hanging 10 feet in the air when it finally stops???

 

[SkiNurse]

Media follow-up from the original story....

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/05/arapahoe-basin-chairlift-rescue-interview/

 

[pais alto]

A ski patrol fanny pack could also get caught on something right??

I suppose. Where I work we all wear vests, except one or two people that carry packs...and those few take them off.

Why aren't the stop arms/ropes shutting down the lifts quicker? Fear of folks without the bars down falling off on the hard stop??

More a fear of hundreds of thousands of pounds of momentum/inertia tearing the system apart. Also possible that a hard enough stop could make waves in the cable that could make the cable buck off the sheave wheels. Lifts have emergency stops but where I work were told they're for rollbacks only. They slam a hydraulic clamp down hard on the bullwheel and take a few minutes to pump back up - they're sort of like air brakes, the hydraulic pressure keeps them open. It's a brutal stop and chairs swing hard - I could imagine people falling out. But I don't think that people hanging from the chairs went around the bullwheel.

EDIT: Addressing the bolded comment above - I just looked at a pic of the A-Basin hanger and it looks like he was on the downhill side. I'm amazed that he somehow got past the stop gate and past the bullwheel. No, I'm stunned. Where was the top lift operator? How did he miss the stop gate?

I guess they could also add a platform beyond the top bullwheel to every lift everywhere so folks that go around aren't hanging 10 feet in the air when it finally stops???

All the lifts where I work have that platform, after the bullwheel.

 

[UGASkiDawg]

Mmm , I hope you just got an ad from a big data company

I get them all the time...sometimes they even work.

 

[Tricia]

Simple way to deal with it - take the pack off before loading the lift.

I'm simply amazed at the number of people that wear their pack on the lift.

I'm always amazed at how many people ski with a back pack in the resort.
How many lift accidents have we seen reported recently from back pack hang ups alone?
4 that I can think of. (2 at Sundance alone)

 

[jmeb]

I sometimes ski with a sling pack. It looks really silly -- but I swear it's pure evolution. One buckle I quickly undo/redo in lift line. Swivel pack to the front for the ride. And provides super easy access to a platypus water bottle, a lift beer, chocolate bar/sandwich. All while still being attached to me so I don't have to hold onto it.

 

[Tricia]

We have a LowPro Slingshot Pro. We use it for camera equipment but we don't ski with it as a rule, just when we actually need camera equipment.
I'm just seeing more risk than reward for the every day skier skiing with a pack.

 

[Sibhusky]

I confess to wearing a fanny pack, which I turn around before I get on the chair. It holds my camera, goggle wipes, tea bags, cup, Chapstick, money, etc. Have worn one for decades without ever catching anything. This one has the buckle to the side, so there's nothing to catch on the chair.

 

[nay]

So what you want is a Red Bull sponsored slackliner following you in the chair.
Is Lenawee a triple? If not it's the Montezuma chair.

Lenawee is a triple. Zuma is a quad.

 

[nay]

EDIT: Addressing the bolded comment above - I just looked at a pic of the A-Basin hanger and it looks like he was on the downhill side. I'm amazed that he somehow got past the stop gate and past the bullwheel. No, I'm stunned. Where was the top lift operator? How did he miss the stop gate?

All the lifts where I work have that platform, after the bullwheel.

We were reading about this on the way home from Copper. Well, my wife was reading, I was driving. Because he was hanging from the chair, he apparently missed the stop gate by swinging outside of it. As we might imagine, it is designed for a rider.

As far as banning backpacks, I don't think the backpack is the issue in and of itself. A typical daypack has nylon strap waist buckles. They don't support any weight like a hip belt, but rather just help hug the pack to your back. If you forget to buckle those straps, they just hang down loosely and definitely can settle between the chair seat and back rest. So when you try to dismount the buckle pieces can hang up in that space. I've done this myself and had to yank pretty good to pull them through. This can be difficult as the lift starts to pull you up as it goes around the bullwheel, but I dealt with it on a detachable (Pano @ Winter Park) so much slower and no quick drop away. Lenawee would not offer any material recovery time as compared to a typical detachable.

According to what we read, the lift operator did stop the lift as soon as he saw the incident, but as noted, it was already on the downhill side well past the platform. It also seems a stroke of bad luck or design to also then be hanging from the pack by your neck. You would have to come out of the shoulder straps entirely, but then presumably have had the chest strap buckled tight enough for your head to not slip through. So first rule on a little daypack is probably to leave the chest strap unbuckled. I never buckle that for skiing as I find it is restrictive and I'm never carrying any weight at a resort to need it. I don't know what else is on a pack that catches on a chair backrest. It's just a cushion. So leave the chest strap unbuckled - it is short, on the front, and shouldn't be able to catch on anything, and ensure the waist strap is buckled.

But the rescue is incredible - the pics are just unbelievable.