"A skier was hurried to a Lakewood hospital Wednesday following a daring rescue from a chairlift at Arapahoe Basin Ski Area earlier that morning.
The skier’s backpack got caught and he was left hanging and unconscious by his neck.A-Basin confirmed Thursday that the man was attempting to unload from the three-person Lenawee Mountain Lift at approximately 11 a.m. on Jan. 4 when a strap he was wearing became entangled in the chair.
Realizing what had happened, the operator shut down the lift, but by then the skier had already swung around and was suspended by what eyewitnesses estimated as 10-to-15 feet off the ground.
That’s when Mickey Wilson, another ski area guest who had been one chair behind, sprung into action.
The part-time, but off-duty, A-Basin ski instructor told The Denver Post that after a failed attempt by himself and other bystanders to reach the dangling man via a human pyramid, he decided to scramble up the nearby tower to try to reach him.
...“I kind of stopped thinking and just started acting,” the 28-year-old Golden resident told the Post. “The only way I was able to get to him so fast was to climb the tower and shimmy down the line.”
In jarring photos and a video posted online, Wilson — a champion competitive slackliner — can be seen sliding about 30 feet down the lift cable to reach the chair where the skier dangled lifeless.
Once there, he first attempted to kick the strap clear of the chair before one of six ski patrollers who arrived on scene lobbed Wilson a knife to successfully free the man.
Patrollers immediately surrounded the man, and, according to an A-Basin statement, a paramedic gave emergency care at the scene.
The skier was then taken by toboggan to the base area, loaded into an ambulance just before noon, and rushed him to St. Anthony Summit Medical Center in Frisco.
He was then transferred to St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood. A St. Anthony spokeswoman confirmed the man was treated overnight and discharged Thursday afternoon..."
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