Banking manager dies in freak chairlift accident when his coat gets caught in the chair.

It's not a freak accident at all. It's a high speed lift. The seat wasn't folded down and the skier fell through the opening.

Very predictable because it's happened a number of times before. On the very same Vail chairlift in 2009, a skier fell through and his pants got caught, leaving him and his bare butt hanging in the air.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/skier-suffers-exposure

This time it just so happened that it was the skier's jacket that got caught and strangled him.

The solution is that all chairs should be folded down by employees before the start of the day's operations and they should be secured in such a manner that they cannot be raised except by employees at the end of the day.

Maybe this death will lead to that result. There will be a lawsuit, no doubt. This is not a natural hazard of skiing.

Reading the second story.... How the heck did it take them 15 minutes to get the guy out? Surely someone at the lift would spot the problem right away. Thinking a little more.... I reckon there's all sorts of systems to make sure the lifts never go backwards. I've seen them stop a lift quickly a number of times when there's a boarding issue, but I don't recall see any reverse to get the problem skier back to the boarding area.

I've snowboarded for 15 years and worked at multiple hills in that timespan. It's a freak accident for sure, not the common occurance you make it out to be.

Also, your solution doesn't work. Employees need to be able to raise the seats quickly while the lift is still moving full speed.

How someone gets strangled I really don't know. Maybe I'm missing something but it seems like had the lifty been paying attention they'd have hit the kill switch and helped the guy before it went that far.

tally wrote:

This time it just so happened that it was the skier's jacket that got caught and strangled him.

The solution is that all chairs should be folded down by employees before the start of the day's operations and they should be secured in such a manner that they cannot be raised except by employees at the end of the day.

Maybe this death will lead to that result. There will be a lawsuit, no doubt. This is not a natural hazard of skiing.

I guess you have never skied before. The chairs are folded up so that snow can't sit on them on heavy snow days. On days without snow the chairs are always down.

My guess is that was an operator error from that lifty there. Keep in mind they pay them just minimum wages so he might had a second job just to survive. Meanwhile that banker who died probably enjoyed the Vail resorts stock he bought.

Yeah blame the guy who worked hard and made good financial decisions.

Near me there was a terrible accident in the cinema when someone got their head caught under the seat and they died of a heart attack, horrible :(

Former ski bum wrote:

I guess you have never skied before. The chairs are folded up so that snow can't sit on them on heavy snow days. On days without snow the chairs are always down.

My guess is that was an operator error from that lifty there. Keep in mind they pay them just minimum wages so he might had a second job just to survive. Meanwhile that banker who died probably enjoyed the Vail resorts stock he bought.

I've had season passes and skiied a hundred days in a season. I'm aware of the snow factor. That's why, as I said, employees can fold the chairs up at the end of the day, so it doesn't accumulate overnight.

The fact that the employees are minimum wage just emphasizes the point that relying on the lift operator to notice that a chair is up, during operations, and stop the lift in time is a system destined to fail.

In another case at Vail, a skiier fell through and suffered broken bones. In that case, the attendant did notice the chair was up but, rather than stop the lift, tried to lower the chair while it was still moving.

Vail admitted that was negligent and the plaintiff got a judgment.

track chick wrote:

Near me there was a terrible accident in the cinema when someone got their head caught under the seat and they died of a heart attack, horrible :(

Man or woman?

It was a man - after the film he dropped his phone between two seats and was trying to retrieve it. The footrest was electronic and it folded onto his head and trapped him there. The staff tried to free him but it took a long time. They took him to hospital but he died.

Good lord

tally wrote:

I've had season passes and skiied a hundred days in a season. I'm aware of the snow factor. That's why, as I said, employees can fold the chairs up at the end of the day, so it doesn't accumulate overnight.

The fact that the employees are minimum wage just emphasizes the point that relying on the lift operator to notice that a chair is up, during operations, and stop the lift in time is a system destined to fail.

Hard to imagine that this is true. At least in Colorado it also snows during lift operation times and sometimes it snows a lot.

Rich guys are dropping like flies. First Kobe dies on his helicopter commute across LA, now this guy dies trying to retrieve his cell phone from a high speed ski lift. Tragic.

Of course this is not the first freak death of a rich guy on a Colorado Ski Slope. A Kennedy skied into a tree while playing a game of football on the slopes with his friends, Duke Alphonso was decapitated by a cable holding up a banner for a ski race, and Doak Walker (Heisman trophy winner) skied off a cliff.

Only pretenders brag about one 100 day season. Considering the ski industry produces 20 billion for the U.S. economy (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/20/climate-change-is-taking-a-toll-on-the-20-billion-ski-industry.html) if the chairlift issue was such an easy quick fix as you suggest it would already have been remedied. As a former lifty and ski instructor I can tell you that the probability of dying as a result of anything to do with a chairlift is extremely low. Money would be better spent stationing ski patrol in parking lots to tend to the overweight, out of shape, and from sea level individuals exhibiting chest pain.

comedyrelief wrote:

Of course this is not the first freak death of a rich guy on a Colorado Ski Slope. A Kennedy skied into a tree while playing a game of football on the slopes with his friends, Duke Alphonso was decapitated by a cable holding up a banner for a ski race, and Doak Walker (Heisman trophy winner) skied off a cliff.

Being risk-averse is an impediment to success at the highest levels so it's no surprise that these guys died. More successful people tend to be bigger risk takers.

GO HOME GAPER wrote:

if the chairlift issue was such an easy quick fix as you suggest it would already have been remedied. As a former lifty and ski instructor I can tell you that the probability of dying as a result of anything to do with a chairlift is extremely low. Money would be better spent stationing ski patrol in parking lots to tend to the overweight, out of shape, and from sea level individuals exhibiting chest pain.

Who said anything about money? Making a policy of seats staying down all day wouldn't cost anything, existing equipment could be kept in place. Some resorts already leave seats down all day and no more than an inch or two can accumulate while the chair is cycling around. Most people sitting down knock the snow off, so you don't really need them up.

I've skied plenty of days with 3 feet falling over the course of the day and it was fine with the seats down. When the lifts close, you raise all the seats so you dont end up with big accumulation over night, and any slush doesnt freeze hard onto the seat.

Your idea of more staff to deal with the weekend warriors having chest pain is a good one. It's likely to become more of a problem over time, the average person in the population isnt getting any fitter. The resorts in the west actually are fairly financially healthy, despite the loss of almost a month to the season over the past 40 years, so there should be some ability to make incremental improvements like that.

track chick wrote:

Near me there was a terrible accident in the cinema when someone got their head caught under the seat and they died of a heart attack, horrible :(

Coulda been Bart's GF, givin him a hot buttered BJ and she choked. What was the movie? 50 Shades of Black?

comedyrelief wrote:

Of course this is not the first freak death of a rich guy on a Colorado Ski Slope. A Kennedy skied into a tree while playing a game of football on the slopes with his friends, Duke Alphonso was decapitated by a cable holding up a banner for a ski race, and Doak Walker (Heisman trophy winner) skied off a cliff.

Sonny Bono...

GO HOME GAPER wrote:

Only pretenders brag about one 100 day season. Considering the ski industry produces 20 billion for the U.S. economy (

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/20/climate-change-is-taking-a-toll-on-the-20-billion-ski-industry.html

) if the chairlift issue was such an easy quick fix as you suggest it would already have been remedied. As a former lifty and ski instructor I can tell you that the probability of dying as a result of anything to do with a chairlift is extremely low. Money would be better spent stationing ski patrol in parking lots to tend to the overweight, out of shape, and from sea level individuals exhibiting chest pain.

US GDP in 2017 was 19.4 TRILLION dollars. $20B is 0.1% of GDP.