Boy Falls From Ski Lift, Lands Into Skiers' Arms At Wisconsin Ski Area (VIDEO)

After dangling 25-feet from a ski lift in Wisconsin, a boy landed safely into the the arms of skiers who had assembled below him.

The incident happened at around 2:45 p.m. on Jan. 29, at the Hidden Valley Ski Area, the Green Bay Press-Gazette reports.

The boy did not seem to sustain any injuries, though he did appear to be shaken up, witness Matt Roeser told FOX 11 News.

Reports indicated that the boy was suspended from the lift for about a minute before dropping to the ground.

Although the boy escaped unharmed, a woman at a Utah ski area died after falling from a chairlift on the same day.

Asha Davenport, 19, suffered a seizure and fell about 30 feet during an outing with friends at Canyons Ski Resort, ABC 4 News reported.

For more on the boy's story, watch the full report by FOX 11 News below.

WATCH:

Comments

[TarzanaGirl]

04:50 PM on 02/06/2012

Nice to hear a compassionate story every now and then. Let's face it ... our news is chock full of horror stories. KUDOS to the heroes that pulled together to help that poor child. They altruistically put the boy's situation ahead of their own safely, risking injury from the child's skis. I hope he wont be afraid to ride the chair lift again ...

[dteg]

01:33 PM on 02/05/2012

More like Good and Bad news. They caught one and in the rest of the story another one fell 30ft to death.

[dogreen]

12:00 PM on 02/05/2012

How is this for irony?

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/crime_and_courts/blog/crime-and-courts-bill-would-absolve-ski-area-operators-from/article_a213348a-4b71-11e1-96f7-0019bb2963f4.html

[Blastrocat]

10:32 AM on 02/05/2012

He could have had the courtesy of ejecting his skis before falling... imagine catching one of those in the face... maybe there wasn't time, I don't know, details seem sketchy.

[David McDevitt]

12:15 PM on 02/05/2012

he had a seizure

[Blastrocat]

01:10 PM on 02/05/2012

Actually, it was the lady who died in a totally unrelated incident who had the seizure.

[djtejas]

12:41 PM on 02/05/2012

Please explain how you disengage the skis form boots while you are dangling from the lift...

Obviously you don't ski...

[Blastrocat]

01:08 PM on 02/05/2012

I can disengage my bindings with my ski poles from any position... obviously you can't. Thanks for being rude about it for no good reason.

[AlonzoQuijana]

10:28 AM on 02/05/2012

This story was on Fox five days ago. HP needs to keep up a little better. News needs to be, well, "new."

[Patrick Brennan]

11:34 AM on 02/05/2012

Thanks for pointing that out! Totally agree.

[joenp3]

01:02 PM on 02/05/2012

I didn't see it 5 days ago. It was a good, little, human interest story, if it happened 5 years ago. I fail to see a valid point, in this case. Nothing was time sensitive.

[sunsetter]

10:05 AM on 02/05/2012

Having been a ski patroller, I have witnessed a lot of little kids that have trouble getting on the chair. Some parents do a very good job of literally picking up the child and placing them in the chair as they load themselves. It's actually quite easy, and safe. However, some parents literally don't see the need to help their kids, and these kids are the ones that fall off when loading and unloading - its very frustrating to watch.

This video shows a child that slipped from the chair and the adult grabbed them, thus the dangling child. Good people came to the rescue and all is well.

[ArmyMedic]

09:43 AM on 02/05/2012

Great job people!! People showing us the physical form of love.. charity. 5 feet or 105 feet, it still seemed like a never ending fall to the kid and the people below him went into action. Well done.

[pageleft]

09:04 AM on 02/05/2012

In the first picture it looked like an adult skier was dangling in midair in front of the boy before he let go but disappeared in the following pictures. Weird...

[pageleft]

09:28 AM on 02/05/2012

Oops, on second look I guess the other skier was on an adjacent lift going up the mountain. He appears to be leaning over the side of his chair toward the falling boy.

[Joeyj1220]

09:02 AM on 02/05/2012

oh the drama... the DRAMA of it all!

[goldbry]

10:58 AM on 02/05/2012

Considering that report includes an account of a woman who died falling from a lift, I think your sarcasm is misplaced.

[George Picard]

08:58 AM on 02/05/2012

Looks like a 10 foot drop. He was not going to die if he hit the ground, I highly doubt he would have been hurt at all.

[EvasDaddy]

10:20 AM on 02/05/2012

Glad someone else noticed that. I'm sure the little guy was scared to death, and it's cool they all got together to catch him, but it wasn't a life or death situation.

They may well have prevented a broken bone, so they did a good thing.

[Preshie]

10:52 AM on 02/05/2012

The article said 25 feet. That's higher than a second story window -- and snow/ice below is HARD.

[George Picard]

10:53 AM on 02/05/2012

Yeah but look at the picture the chair is not that high, unless he fell from a chair I cant see.

[dogspeed]

08:46 AM on 02/05/2012

Why did he fall from the chair?

[orthobobsuruncle]

09:32 AM on 02/05/2012

You would think the article would mention that detail, wouldn't you?

[viviennes]

09:50 AM on 02/05/2012

Its easier than you think. Those chairs aren't very big and
there are no safety straps. A friend was telling a joke and
leaned forward laughing, his friend slapped him on his back.
Down he went.

[Josh Crawford]

08:38 AM on 02/05/2012

A) He would have fallen about ten feet to SNOW. 99.9% chance that he would have been fine even without the people catching him. After all, kids that age are "made of rubber".
B) 99% chance that it was "operator error" (i.e. the kid (or the adult riding with them) did something stupid).
C) Good for those people for seeing a problem and getting in position to "help"
D) Chairlifts without "safety bars" are stupid.

[sixchair]

09:59 AM on 02/05/2012

it was wi. it's ice.

[frank day]

10:05 AM on 02/05/2012

Yep

[djtejas]

01:26 PM on 02/05/2012

Evidently you have clue how hard and packed the snow can be, especially in Wisconsin.

Most chairlifts don't have "safety bars"...they can even cause people to get their skis and snowboards tangled in them.

Falling from 25 ft onto hard packed snow or ice can injury someone very easily....I snowboard and have had my fair share of injuries doing jumps intentionally (not off lifts). I can image how unintentionally falling from the lift could injury someone.

[Josh Crawford]

11:26 PM on 02/05/2012

I've been snowboarding for 25 years (and skiing for ten year before that), I've been a snowboard instructor since 1992 and I grew up on the East Coast. I know how hard snow can be. Look at the picture, the child was dangling about ten feet above the ground. He could have fallen onto concrete and been fine. Also, the person in the chair had a hold on him and it would have been/was a "controlled fall", not like he was shoved unexpectedly from the chair directly to the ground. He had every chance in the world to prepare for the fall and brace himself accordingly (the fact that there was time for a crowd to gather under him should make that clear).

[frankwhite70]

08:37 AM on 02/05/2012

OMG please!!!! You'd think he was 100 ft in the air or something. The kid was twenty five feet in the air. SLOW NEWS DAY I GUESS. The kid probably jumps that distance at home, off of the trees, with his buddies on a daily basis. Lol.

[MrBiggs]

10:01 AM on 02/05/2012

A 20 foot fall is nothing? Must be a slow comment day. . .

[EvasDaddy]

10:22 AM on 02/05/2012

the article said 20 feet. The pictures say 10 or 12. Not a dangerous height.

[kevinbr38]

08:35 AM on 02/05/2012

With so much animosity around, and so many horror stories of abuse and neglect it sure is heart-warming to read a story like this.

[ebanks84]

07:42 AM on 02/05/2012

WATCH OUT PEOPLE. There are losers up here with "hot" links that contain viruses if you click on them. Of course these losers have no fans to speak of. Just don't click any links from strangers.

[kevinbr38]

08:28 AM on 02/05/2012

I hope people pay attention to your words Ebanks..
The dead giveaway is the fact that these "losers" as you so aptly call them, almost always have zero fans.
I flag them,(not that I am a moderator), and post Spammer in caps.