Several skiers and snowboarders had to be rescued Friday afternoon after the chair lift broke down at Rabbit Hill Snow Resort just outside Edmonton.
Rescue crews could be seen helping stranded skiers down from the chair lift just after 4 p.m. Harnesses and cables were used to bring skiers back down to safety.
General Manager Jim Sutherland said the chair lift had an electrical problem, which was then compounded by a mechanical issue.
“We normally could be able to evacuate the chair lift with an evacuation motor but that didn’t work out and we had to use our manual system with ropes and harnesses,” he said.
“Every year we run all our staff through the training program for getting people down and we practice it several times a year.”
Derek Look was involved in the rescue. While he’s trained for this type of scenario several times, he said it was the first time he’s ever done it for real.
“Your heart is pumping for sure but that’s when training kicks in and you just go through the motions of what we train on,” he said. “Luckily it wasn’t very cold.”
Look said his adrenaline was pumping but the rescue went smoothly and quickly.
“We have about five teams that can do the whole span of the chair lift,” he said. “We put teams in position throughout the line.”
Watch below: While Friday’s chair lift rescue at Rabbit Hill looked dramatic, staff were trained and ready. Fletcher Kent has more.
He said one of the most important aspects of the rescue was keeping people calm.
“They don’t know what’s going on, so making sure the communication is getting to them to say, ‘here is what’s happening, we’re going to bring you down,'” he explained. “Once they find out what’s happening and how they’re coming down, most people are actually quite excited about it – it’s amazing – especially kids.
“I myself brought down a number of children that day and they had their phones out and they’re trying to get pictures of what’s going on because they’re just having a great time.”
Sutherland said the chair lift was full at the time and dozens were rescued.
“There’s 32 chairs, three people to a chair,” he said. “The evacuation went very well. Everybody got down safely. We had a little bit of help from the fire department.”
Sutherland said this type of thing doesn’t happen very often.
“I’ve been here 35 years and it’s happened about five or six times in my recollection.”
Everyone at the hill was given a lift ticket to come back another day.
The chair hill was back up and running shortly after 5 p.m.
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