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SUNDANCE — For the second time in two weeks, a skier captured video of a child dangling from a chairlift at Sundance Mountain Resort.
On Monday afternoon, a young boy skiing with friends was snagged by the moving chairlift. By all accounts, the roughly 10-year-old child, who was not injured, remained calm through the ordeal.
Clint Ashmead, a man who was skiing with two of his children, caught the whole thing on camera. He says his video tells the story of why we all need to be careful while wearing a backpack on the ski lift.
"We saw a kid dangling from the chair lift," Ashmead said. "And as we sat there and watched, we could see that it was his backpack is what got hung up on the chairlift."
"I was concerned for this young man, no doubt," he said. "A fear that we had, too, was that (the backpack) was somehow, maybe strangling him — cutting off his airway."
Ashmead's video shows lift workers talking with the boy as he dangles precariously from the stopped chairlift.
"The 'lifties' did a great job recognizing it right away and stopping the lift, and then jumping right into action," Ashmead said.
The workers used a ladder to get up on the boy's seat and pull him back up to safety.
While this may seem like a rare mishap, it is actually the second time in just the past two weeks that a young boy has been caught on the Sundance chairlift.
Another skier, Phil Warner, posted video on his YouTube channel of an incident on Dec. 21 when a different boy was caught with his backpack.
"Just don't move, kid. Hold onto that backpack!" Warner is heard saying.
"The video really hit home to me and my kids," Ashmead said. "We had that safety discussion early in the morning about chairlift safety, and when we saw this happen we just looked at each other on the lift and it was like, 'See, it does happen.' It was a real reality check for us."
Ashmead hopes other parents will have the same talk with their own children before they hit the slopes.
"It can be dangerous up on the mountain; and I think if we go through some safety precautions with them, they can be prepared and we can also be prepared to be able to react," he said.
KSL News was unable to reach anyone at Sundance who would discuss Monday's incident. Fortunately, the young boy was not injured, but his ordeal is an eye-opening lesson for everyone.
