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Dec 28, 2010

Six people suffered non-life-threatening injuries in a chairlift accident this morning at the Sugarloaf Mountain ski resort in Maine, the resort said in a statement.

The accident happened at about 10:30 a.m. when the Spillway East chairlift derailed from the lift's eighth tower. Five chairs on the lift fell 25 to 30 feet to the ground, the resort said.

The injured skiers were treated and were being transported to a local hospital. At the time of the accident, there were 220 people dangling on the lift in the frigid winds.

The ski patrol responded to the resort and evacuated the people from the lift, the resort said in a statement at 1 p.m.

The resort said the cause of the incident was under investigation.

Eighteen-year-old Ben Simms, a senior at Harriton Senior High School in Rosemont, Pa., was on the lift when a chair above him derailed.

“I was on the lift with someone who works at Sugarloaf. [The chair] bounced up and down, and [the employee] said that a car might have derailed.”

It was the beginning of an almost two-hour ordeal, in which Simms sat on the lift, freezing and waiting to be rescued.

“They rescue people depending on where on the lift was the coldest,” which is higher up, Simms said in a telephone interview, explaining that his car was near the fourth tower.

Rescuers finally came. Simms attached himself to a pulley system that gradually lowered him to the ground.

Simms, who learned to ski at Sugarloaf starting at age two, said nothing like this has ever happened to him.

“Chair lifts stop a lot,” he said, adding that it had stopped once before the derailment. “But after the second time it stopped and my chair bounced, [I knew] something was wrong.”

The two-passenger lift was manufactured and installed in 1975 and modified in 1983. It carries 162 chairs, each weighing 140 pounds. The lift is powered by a 250-horsepower motor. It is inspected daily and receives weekly, monthly, and yearly maintenance and testing, as well as an annual inspection by the Maine Board of Elevator and Tramway Safety, the resort said.

The Carrabassett Valley resort said it was concerned for those involved and expressed gratitude to safety personnel who responded.

"Sugarloaf Mountain is absolutely committed to the safety of its guests and employees," the resort said in a statement.

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Efforts to free trapped, injured skiers under way at Maine resort

Kingfield, Maine (CNN) -- At least 200 people were trapped and several others injured Tuesday after a ski lift broke down at Sugarloaf Ski Resort in Maine, causing several skiers to fall to the ground, a resort manager said.

Robb Atkinson, a CNN employee who was initially also trapped on the lift, said several people fell from the lift when it came to an abrupt stop during high winds.

"I felt a jerk," said Atkinson, who was riding the lift with his wife. He also described hearing "screams from skiers below" as he watched at least three chairs drop 20 to 30 feet to the ground.

Ethan Austin, Sugarloaf spokesman, said the derailment on one tower of the Spillway East lift happened around 10:30 a.m. ET, when the cable skipped over the edge of the pulley. Five of the lift's chairs hit the ground, falling 25 to 30 feet, he said.

Six people were taken to area hospitals for treatment, the resort said in a statement. None of the injuries is believed to be life-threatening, according to Austin.

High winds are gusting between 30 and 50 mph in the area, according to CNN Meteorologist Jacqui Jeras, and temperatures at the resort are well below freezing.

Austin said Tuesday afternoon there are an estimated 220 people and more than 100 chairs on the lift, and the process of evacuating everyone from the chairs dangling above the resort was under way.

"You had to slide off the chair lift 40 feet off the ground into a swing," Atkinson said. After that, skiers were lowered down to the ground and had to ski to the base of the mountain, he said.

Franklin County Emergency officials contacted Gov. John Balducci with updates on the incident and subsequent rescues, according to David Farmer, Balducci's deputy chief of staff.

Two inspectors with the Maine Safety Board were sent to Sugarloaf to investigate, said Farmer. The probe is "protocol for any accident where the state government oversees certification of a ski resort," he added.

The resort is located about 100 miles north of Portland, Maine.



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