A snowboarder who was trying to replicate a video posted on social media dropped eight metres from a moving chairlift at a ski resort in the B.C. Interior last winter, landing on his back.
The incident was the subject of a recent investigation by Technical Safety B.C., one of several involving chairlifts.
As snow begins to accumulate on local mountains, skiers will soon be returning to B.C. ski resorts. Several, including Whistler-Blackcomb, Cypress Mountain and Big White outside Kelowna, have opened early thanks to dumps of fresh powder. On the Island, Mount Washington Alpine Resort is set to open Dec. 13.
While incidents involving B.C. chairlifts are rare, people have died in the past, including in 1995, when four chairs crashed to the ground beneath a lift in Whistler. Two people died, while 10 others were injured.
Technical Safety B.C. oversees the safety of chairlifts, roller-coasters and waterslides in B.C. — and investigates when things go wrong.
Reports show passenger behaviour is behind many of the injuries involving chairlifts, with about 60 per cent stemming from “unruly behaviour, distracted activity and failure to follow safety signage,” said senior safety officer David Looney in a blog post encouraging skiers to put “safety over selfie.”
Several recent incidents also involve kids.
The snowboarder who tried to mimic a stunt he saw on social media was a teenage boy, according to the Technical Safety B.C. investigation report.
The owner of the ski resort in the Interior was unaware that two days before the boy jumped, someone had posted a video of another rider hanging from the same chairlift at the same location before dropping to the ground and smoothly riding away.
While night skiing with a friend in February, the teen decided to copy the video. He jumped from his seat, hanging momentarily before letting go.
As his friend watched, the boy landed on his back and lost consciousness for several seconds before standing up. He then began coughing up blood. He suffered multiple broken bones, a concussion and internal injuries that required long-term hospitalization.
According to a statement provided to investigators by his parents, he has no memory of the incident or the week leading up to it.
Several young kids have slipped off B.C. chairlifts in recent years, according to other Technical Safety B.C. investigation reports.
In 2022, an eight-year-old boy fell into deep, untouched snow while riding a chairlift at a ski hill in the Lower Mainland. Witnesses reported seeing him hanging from the chair before falling.
An investigation found the boy was riding a quad chair with three others and sat down on his poles while loading. Although the restraining bar was down, as he tried to free his poles, he slipped off the seat.
That same year, a child who was part of a ski team was riding a chairlift in the Interior with three teammates when the child fell, suffering a bruised lung and two broken elbows.
While the children had the restraining bar down, they lifted it as they neared the end of the lift. The chairlift stopped for an unrelated event, and when it began moving again, the child slipped and fell 7 1/2 metres.
On its website, Technical Safety B.C. advises parents to prepare their kids before riding a chairlift — ski tips pointed down and forward, pole straps removed.
Once on a lift, make sure kids are sitting with their backs to the seat back, it says, adding to use the restraint bar, warn people when you’re lowering or raising it and not to rock the chair.
Not all incidents involve falling. In 2021 in the Interior, a child unloaded from a chairlift but didn’t ski far enough away, and was struck in the back of the head by the chair. The child sustained a concussion and fractured vertebrae.
In 2021 in North 91原创, an adult lost the tip of his left ring finger after he threw the restraining bar up at the end of the lift, pinching his finger.
There have been some recent close calls, as well. Last winter, during the January cold snap that saw temperatures plummet to -28 C, the haul rope came off-track at an unload station at an Interior ski resort.
Ski patrol members began a manual rope evacuation of passengers. The haul rope was eventually repositioned and the passengers were safely unloaded within an hour.
The Technical Safety B.C. investigation found the ropeway had de-roped at the same location seven times during operation over the last five years, always when a passenger fell upon disembarking from the chair, causing it to swing from side to side and go off-track.
Before and during the ski season, according to the Technical B.C. website, ski resorts in B.C. adhere to “rigorous inspection procedures” for chairlifts.
While resorts conduct their own inspection on an individual basis, safety officers also periodically inspect chairlifts, gondolas, tramways, rope tows and passenger conveyors to ensure they’re operating safely.
