Autopsy released for San Antonio woman who fell off Colorado ski lift A San Antonio woman died after falling 20 feet from a chairlift at a small Colorado ski area Thursday, Dec. 29, 2016. Colorado investigators have released an autopsy for the 40-year-old San Antonio mother who died at a ski resort there Thursday. Kelly Huber, who fell off a ski lift at the Granby Ranch Ski Resort, died of a traumatic rupture of the aorta and blunt force trauma to the torso, according to a Grand County Coroner’s office report. Huber was on the Quick Draw chairlift with her two daughters. The two girls, ages 9 and 12, were hospitalized. Investigators still don’t know the reason that the three fell, but the quad chairlift was immediately shut down and remained closed for investigation as of Saturday evening. “The lift will not resume operation Saturday and will remain closed until deemed safe for public operation,” said Lee Rasizer, public information officer for the Professions and Occupations Division of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies.
Granby Police Department Chief James Kraker said in a statement Friday that such ski lift accidents are “rare” and has urged members of the media and the public to respect the Huber family’s privacy as the investigation continues.A scary scenario at Sundance Resort in Utah was caught on camera Wednesday when a boy skiing with his family got caught on a ski lift, prompting a tense rescue as the boy screamed frantically for help. The incident occurred when the boy's backpack became stuck as he was trying to exit the ski lift at one of the resort's stations, leaving him dangling from the chair as it continued up the mountain. Phil Warner, who filmed the rescue, told KTLA sister station KSTU in Salt Lake City that he had come to Sundance to go skiing with his daughters when the boy in the chair behind him got caught. "I just heard screaming, 'help, help, help,'" said Warner. In the video, Warner can be heard trying to keep the boy calm as rescue workers tried to figure out how to bring him down safely.
The lift was brought to a halt as employees worked to resolve the situation. "The lift operator did a good job stopping the lift as soon as he could," Warner said. The ski lift operator called on the radio for help and within minutes, ski patrol arrived to assess the situation. "There was someone on the ground talking to him the whole time, and I was trying to keep him calm too," Warner said. Ski patrol personnel quickly realized they needed a ladder, but as he waited, the young boy became more and more frightened, he recalled. "I think he was hurting. I think the backpack was holding his weight on his arms," Warner said. Once they got the ladder, ski patrol was able to climb up and get the backpack off the boy. Czar Johnson, Director of Mountain Operations at Sundance, said these scenarios do happen every once in a while. "People get caught up in chairlifts with backpacks and even ski jackets and ski poles and helmets. It does happen," Johnson told the station.
Johnson recommended that skiers and snowboarders should start preparing to unload before it's time to get off the ski lift. "It's a good idea to check your backpack, move around a little bit, make sure you aren’t caught up on anything before you do unload," he said. Skiers and snowboarders to avoid carrying extra items like backpacks. "The lift operators will strongly encourage them to take it off. Ideally, when you do that you would take it off and put it in front of you and put your arms through it in front so your backpack is sitting on your chest," Johnson said. The young boy managed to walk away without any injuries. "A lot of things could’ve gone wrong and they didn't," Warner said.GRANBY, Colo. (AP/CBS4) – A mother died and her two young daughters were injured after falling from a chairlift at a small Colorado ski area Thursday. The 40-year-old Texas mother and the girls, ages 9 and 12, fell 20 feet from a four-person lift onto snow at Ski Granby Ranch, a 400-acre family-oriented resort about 90 miles west of Denver.
“Ski patrol arrived, and they, in addition to EMS, transported the patients to Middle Park Medical Center in Granby,” said Schelly Olson with Granby Fire. The 12-year-old girl was treated and released from a hospital in Granby and the 9-year-old was flown to Children’s Hospital in Aurora for treatment. Investigators have not released any names and have not said what caused the family to fall. Police spokeswoman Schelly Olson said state regulators who oversee chairlifts are helping with the investigation. “The lift was operating safely to get everyone else off,” Olson said. The Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board is now investigating and says the lift will reopen when it’s deemed safe for the public. Witnesses to the accident told CBS4 there had been trouble with the lift for the past few days and the lift even stopped for 10 minutes earlier Thursday morning. Each stop of the lift caused chairs to sway and bounce. Deaths from malfunctions or falls are rare in the United States, The Denver Post reported.
The top unloading terminal of Sunday River’s Spruce Peak Triple lift toppled when the foundation separated from the mountaintop, causing the structure to break apart and the cable and chairs to drop to the ground. It could’ve been a catastrophe had it happened during the winter with skiers onboard. “Thank God it happened in the summer when it was not in use,” said Mark Di Nola, a ski safety consultant in New Hampshire. Sunday River’s lift manager noticed the structural failure Sunday evening, and engineers have been on the scene this week in the town of Newry to determine what happened, Sunday River spokeswoman Darcy Lambert said. No one witnessed the structure’s failure, she said. And ski industry officials said that type of failure was unusual. The National Ski Areas Association could point to only one other similar failure, at New Hampshire’s Gunstock Mountain Resort in 1990, when the foundation of a newly installed lift separated, causing the terminal to fall over.
After that incident, workers installed additional rock anchors to ensure the concrete foundations of other lifts didn’t detach from the mountainside, said Greg Goddard, general manager in Gilford, New Hampshire. In Maine, it’s too early to say what happened, but the Maine Board of Elevator and Tramway Safety is alerting other ski areas in the state to ensure that the lifts are properly anchored, spokesman Doug Dunbar said. At Sunday River, there had been rain before the lift failure. It appears the foundation separated from the soil, then the weight of the cable and chairs pulled it down the mountain, Lambert said. The structure fell to the ground in a jumbled heap. The Spruce Peak lift is 30 years old and is part of the early development of the ski mountain. It had passed its annual inspection, which included an examination of the foundation, last fall, Dunbar said. A decision on whether to repair or replace the lift won’t be made until engineers from the resort, MountainGuard insurance and the Maine Board of Elevator and Tramway Safety complete their investigation.