Posted 18 December 2009 - 08:59 PM
Witnesses recall chaotic scene after Devil's Head ski lift accident in Wisconsin
'I've never heard screaming like that'
By John Keilman and Kevin Murphy Chicago Tribune
December 19, 2009
MERRIMAC - , Wis. -- Michael Krisher had almost reached the top of a hill at the Devil's Head ski resort when the chair lift he was riding stopped.
He wasn't concerned. Lifts stopped all the time when someone lost a ski or stumbled getting off. But after a moment the chair started to go backward -- slowly at first, then faster and faster.
"As we were going down the hill, you could just hear people screaming at the bottom," Krisher said. "I've never heard screaming like that except in the movies."
For reasons Wisconsin officials are still trying to discern, a nearly 40-year-old lift at the resort began running backward Thursday night at an out-of-control rate of speed, overriding several safety brakes that should have stopped it.
Authorities said 14 people were hurt, though by Friday almost all had been released from area hospitals. Some had leaped from their chairs as they tried to avoid the pileup at the bottom.
Krisher, 27, of Sun Prairie, decided to stay with his chair. It eventually slowed and stopped just before the bottom of the hill. He had been speeding backward for about 45 seconds, he estimated.
Skiers said the lift, which has a capacity of up to 70 people, was fully loaded when it malfunctioned at about 7 p.m.
Skiers and snowboarders were stunned at the bizarre mishap that plunged a night of half-price skiing into chaos at the resort, about 40 miles northwest of Madison.
"I've been riding there since I was a kid, 15 or 20 years, and nothing like this has happened before," said Madison resident Josh Strandlie, 25, who witnessed the accident.
Arlington Heights snowboarders Chris Ambler and Mike daPonte were close to the top when their chair began to go backward. Ambler, 21, said the change of momentum nearly sent them tumbling, since the chair did not have a safety bar in front.
"Then I heard some metal clanking and saw chairs flying around sideways at the top (of the lift)," Ambler said "A few kids in a chair behind us started yelling, 'Jump! Jump!' "
Those who reached the bottom were being flung from their chairs, Ambler said, so he and daPonte leaped about 20 feet to the ground, their snowboards still strapped to their feet. Neither man was hurt.
Joe Vittengl, the general manager of Devil's Head, said an emergency brake deployed automatically to stop the chairs, and an operator also pushed a button that stopped the lift.
He said the accident's cause was still undetermined, though a drive system appeared to have failed. The lift passed an inspection last month, he said.
The resort opened Friday, though officials with the Wisconsin Department of Commerce were still poring over the malfunctioning machine.
Nearby hospitals took in 14 people from the resort. The people received mostly minor head, neck and back injuries, though Ken Carlson, spokesman for Sauk Prairie Memorial Hospital in Prairie du Sac, said one person suffered a lower extremity fracture.
By late Friday, only one person who had been in the accident was still hospitalized. Kevin Grohskopf, spokesman for St. Clare Hospital in Baraboo, said that person's injuries were not life-threatening.
John Keilman is a Tribune reporter; Kevin Murphy is a freelance reporter.
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