Five people were recovering on Monday following a chairlift incident at Heavenly Mountain Resort in Lake Tahoe. Two chairs on the Comet Express lift apparently collided, causing some skiers to fall about 30 feet to the snow below. The incident occurred around 10 a.m. A witness reported seeing one chair slide backward and crash into the chair behind it. Heidi Schmitt, who had been on the same chairlift 10 minutes earlier, described seeing emergency responders at the scene and a backpack hanging from the chairlift.
The Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District stated that three rescue ambulances were dispatched, and five individuals were transported to Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno. Heavenly Mountain Resort confirmed the incident and stated that the safety of their guests is their top priority. The resort is conducting an investigation.
Comet Express is a high-speed detachable chairlift capable of carrying four people per chair and moving 2,800 people per hour. It was shut down for the remainder of the day following the incident.
In a related note, the resort had an incident in January where a woman spent 15 hours in a gondola overnight in freezing temperatures, although she was not injured. The resort admitted failure to follow protocols in that case. Additionally, on Sunday at Winter Park Resort in Colorado, a gondola malfunction stranded 174 people for hours, requiring rescue operations using ropes and ladders.
