Skier dangles by coat after slipping off chairlift, New York video shows

Katie Camero

Footage shows the moments before a skier falls off a chairlift carrying three other people Sunday in upstate New York.

But the plunge wasn’t one and done.

Someone recorded the skier releasing their grip on the lift at the Bristol Mountain Ski Resort in Canandaigua, New York, in an attempt to fall onto a rescue tarp below. But the skier’s coat gets caught on the lift’s foot rest instead, knocking their helmet off in the process.

“I was about to get in line for the chairlift when I saw the person dangling,” Jacklyn Hoch told Storyful. “I believe they were hanging there for a little over two minutes.”

The individual continues to hang off the chairlift as the person sitting closest to them tries shoving their coat off the edge, the video shows.

In what appears to be their only way out, the skier scurries out of their coat and falls onto a tarp being stretched by about six emergency responders from the ski resort.

The resort told Spectrum News it plans on conducting an internal investigation into the incident.

Since 2004, there have been three deaths as a result from falls off chairlifts that were unrelated to mechanical malfunctions, according to the most recent data from the National Ski Areas Association.

An analysis done by the Colorado Passenger Tramway Board found that between 2001 and 2012, ski areas in the state reported 227 falls from chairlifts that involved injuries.

Generally, “a passenger is five times more likely to suffer a fatality riding an elevator than a ski lift, and more than eight times more likely to suffer a fatality riding in a car than on a ski lift,” the association said.