SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — Twice in one week people had to be evacuated from a ski lift at Elk Mountain.
These types of rescues are rare to see especially in this short time frame at the same resort. This is rare, especially at Elk Mountain. If you remember exactly a week ago, one of its larger lifts broke down due to a broken gear, leading to its first rescue in decades. With Sunday’s lift breaking down it is leaving two of its six lifts out of commission.
Tyler Duncan’s mother could be heard coaching her 13-year-old son, who was one of dozens being rescued from an Elk Mountain Ski Resort lift.
“I get on the lift, it’s all normal, we’re going up, we stop for the first minute or two and I am like ‘this is just a normal stoppage, it will continue in a few seconds’. About 10 minutes go by and I thought we are going to be here for a while more,” Duncan said.
Viewers sent videos to Eyewitness News from Sunday’s rescue. Resort management tells Eyewitness News three lifts experienced an electrical shortage at the same time..
After resetting its power Lift Number Three or “C” would not start. The others did. Management says power was not going to the “drive” to move the lift.
Once the problem was discovered, ski patrol started the evacuation process.
“I was watching the people around me to see me what they did so I could like learn what the best way to get down was and I think that actually helped me a lot,” Duncan said.
Duncan explained how ski patrol got skiers and snowboards down from a lift.
“Crescent moon shape, like a semi-circle and they throw that part over the cable that’s over head and they have rope going through it,” Duncan said.
Then he attached a harness to repel.
“They dropped me a little fast to start and then they caught me and I thought that was the speed the whole way down but they caught me and slowly repelled me the rest of the way,” Duncan said.
The Elk Mountain team had electrical workers come on site to fix the issue. They’re hoping to have the “C” lift back up and running in the coming days.
