Hospital: Children were injured on Maine ski lift accident

CARRABASSETT VALLEY, Maine -- A 35-year-old chair lift set for improvements failed Tuesday at a popular Maine resort, sending skiers -- some of them children -- plummeting into ungroomed snow far below that fell with the Northeast's recent blizzard and softened the landing.

At least eight people, the children among them, were taken to a hospital after the double-chair lift at Sugarloaf derailed during a busy vacation week at the resort 120 miles north of Portland.

The resort said the lift, which went into service in 1975 and recently passed an inspection, was set for upgrades or repairs but declined to specify when. About five chairs fell 25 to 30 feet onto a ski trail below, officials said.

Rebecca London, one of the skiers who tumbled to the snow, told The Associated Press that her face hit a retaining bar, but that her goggles spared her from serious injury. She credited new snow underneath the lift with a soft landing; the resort said it got 20 to 22 inches in Monday's storm.

"Thankfully, they didn't groom it last night, so they left it like it was," she said. "So the snow was all soft."

Most of the skiers who fell appeared to be stunned but OK, she said, and the ski patrol was on the scene within minutes treat the injured. London, 20, of Carrabassett Valley, said she wasn't hurt badly enough to go to a hospital.

Jay Marshall, a ski coach who hunkered down in a cold wind while on a lift next to the broken one, said that his lift was moving but that the broken one was not.

There was a "loud snapping noise" after the lift restarted, he said, then some screams.

"The next thing I know, it was bouncing up and down like a yo-yo," said Marshall, of Carrabassett Valley. He said it was too difficult to watch, so he looked away. "It was terrifying," he said.

There could have been as few as 50 people or as many as 160 on the lift at the time, according to Sugarloaf, owned by Boyne Falls, Mich.-based Boyne Resorts. Sugarloaf workers used a pulley-like system to lower skiers to safety.

Jill Gray, a spokeswoman for Franklin Memorial Hospital about in Farmington, 45 miles away, said eight adults and children were taken there but did not give details on the injuries. One of the injured was flown on to Maine Medical Center in Portland, she said.

At the time of the accident, high winds were buffeting Maine a day after a blizzard swept across the region.

Sugarloaf said the wind was gusting to about 40 mph, but it's unclear whether the accident was wind-related or mechanical. Because of its position on the face of the mountain, the lift that failed is more vulnerable to being shut down because of high winds, said Ethan Austin, Sugarloaf spokesman.

The failed lift and two others started the day on a "wind hold," Austin said, but Sugarloaf officials later deemed it safe to operate before the accident at 10:15 a.m.

Guidelines for "wind holds" include wind speed and other factors, but sometimes it's as simple as noting whether chairs are swinging in the wind, he said.

The failed lift is 4,013 feet long, gains 1,454 feet of elevation and nearly reaches the summit of 4,327-foot Sugarloaf, the state's second-tallest mountain. It went into service in 1975 and was modified in 1983, according to Sugarloaf officials.

Betsy Twombly of Falmouth said the resort notified season pass holders like herself that the lift would be the first to be replaced under a 10-year improvement plan. Austin told reporters it was on a list of those to be upgraded but declined to say when that was due to happen.

Twombly witnessed the aftermath and praised the quick work of Sugarloaf workers, who she said worked calmly and efficiently to get people down from the lift and off the mountain.

"I expected to see hysteria, but there was none," she said.

Sugarloaf appeared to be as stunned as the skiers when the cable jumped out of the roller wheels, causing it to dangle and chairs to fall. It assured visitors that its lifts are inspected each day.

"We haven't had a derailment of this magnitude in the 60 years Sugarloaf has been in operation," said Richard Wilkinson, vice president for mountain operations.

The lift was properly licensed and inspected for 2010, said Doug Dunbar of Maine Department of Professional and Financial Regulation. Ski resort chair lifts fall under the jurisdiction of the department's Board of Elevator and Tramway Safety, and two inspectors were dispatched to Sugarloaf, Dunbar said.

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Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers David Sharp in Portland; Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H.; Wilson Ring in Montpelier, Vt.; and Bob Salsberg and Jay Lindsay in Boston.