CARRABASSETT VALLEY, Maine — Some scary moments for skiers and snowboarders at the Sugarloaf Mountain ski resort on Saturday when a chairlift suddenly stopped and then started moving backward.
Several jumped off the lift and, according to resort spokesman Ethan Austin, seven suffered injuries that weren't considered life-threatening.
The lift in question, King Pine, serves the easternmost side of the resort, left as you look up the mountain. At roughly 11:45 a.m. the lift's chairs were full of skiers and snowboarders, with a capacity of 200-230 people.
Eyewitnesses described the chaotic scene that unfolded.
"The lift started going backwards very rapidly," says eyewitness Kieran O'Shaughnessy. "The first two [chairs] that started going up backwards swung up really high … so that people were almost upside down."
People on it started screaming as the chairs swung back and forth. Some jumped to the ground.
"It was going back very, very fast, faster than it would normally go up," O'Shaughnessy says. "I'd say probably 60-80 people jumped off as it was going backwards."
At least one chair slammed into a lift tower, apparently injuring a man on it. A 2nd eyewitness, a woman who declined to be identified, says the lift swung backwards for at least 15 seconds before it was stopped.
By 1:30 p.m. rescue workers had evacuated the stopped lift using ropes thrown across the cable, with seats attached to it to lower people down.
"I've been skiing for 47 years and I've never seen anything like it before," O'Shaughnessy says.
This is the second multiple-injury lift accident at Sugarloaf in recent years. In December 2010, part of a lift known as Spillway went down, injuring eight people including a man who suffered a broken back and brain trauma.