Mother of boy who fell from chairlift at Whitehorse's Mount Sima 'endlessly thankful' for everyone's help

The mother of the boy who fell from the chairlift at Mount Sima in Whitehorse on Saturday said she is "endlessly thankful"for the help her family received.

The mother said her son, as well as his grandfather, whom he was with on the chairlift, are "well, even if we may be a bit nervous about the chairlift in the future,"in an email to CBC News.

CBC isn't naming the mother or grandfather in order to protect the identity of the child.

A video of the incident sent to CBC News over Facebook shows a small skier hanging from the ski lift, about five to six metres from the ground.

Eight bystanders gathered underneath, forming a circle to break the fall.

The child eventually let go and the group underneath caught him, lessening the impact of the fall.

Sam Oettli, general manager of Mount Sima, was the first aid attendant on scene and arrived just after the group caught the boy.

He said he checked on the boy to make sure he was fine.

"He was ok [but] a little shaken up," he said. "No one was hurt."

Oettliadded that staff took care of the grandfather at the top of the mountain and let him know his grandson was OK before escorting himdown the hill to see his grandson.

"As a mum,I am and will be endlessly thankful for the kindness and concern of the strangers who kept my family safe yesterday," the mother wrote.

"This includes the skiers who made sure to catch [my son] and bring him to safety, and the Mt. Sima staff (and ski patrol) who met my dad at the top of the hill and skied him down to be reunited with my son," she wrote.

Heavy snow played a role

An investigation ski hill conductedinto the incident showed "there was a bit of awkwardness at the load, but nothing that was out of the normal," Oettli said, referring to how the boy and grandfather were positioned when they got on the chairlift.

He said the heavy snow played a role in the incident.

He said skiers bring the heavy snow with them onto theloading carpet, where people position themselves to get onto the chairlift, making thearea more slippery.

"It sounds like they got a little further than they should have,"Oettlisaid, describing the pair getting onto the chairlift later on the loading carpet than usual. He said that made it difficult for them to be seated properly on the lift.

He said everything was happening quickly for the pair and that by the time they realized what was going on, "the younger individual was having some trouble getting there and basically their bottom on the seat properly."

He said the boy started sliding off the chair and his grandfather tried to hold onto him. Eventually, the boy was hanging from the chairlift.

"And then luckily, a member of the public [who] was under the lift at the time, came right over to the lift operator at the bottom and brought their attention to the situation, which, you know, they looked up the line, immediately stopped the lift and went into their emergency processes and procedures," Oettlisaid.

He said he and other patrollers went right away to see how they could help.

By then the boy had fallen and been caught by the eight bystanders.

Safety recordgettingbetter

Oettli said this is the second, and most serious, incident of a missed load at Mount Sima this year.

He said before the pandemic, the ski hill used to average about 1,500 skiers getting on the chairlift every day and there would be about three missed loads per season.

"But not nearly as bad as this last one here where the person ended up way down the line," Oettliadded.

He said this season, the ski hill is averaging 3,000 skiers getting on the chairlift every day.

"If you look at it from a statistics standpoint, our safety record is getting better and better as we, you know, make our operation as safe as we possibly can," he said.

Oettli said the ski hill is always trying to learn from missed loads incidents.

He said as a result of this incident, the ski hill is looking at installing some technology at the bottom of the hill to help operators see lifts further down their current line of sightas people go up the mountain on the chairlift.

"We try to make sure that none of these things ever happen again," Oettli said.