Yesterday there was some pretty severe weather at the Silvrette Montafon alpine resort, and there were reports of skiers becoming trapped on ski lifts. This article includes a video showing occupied chairs on a lift swinging perilously from side to side.
How are people rescued from such situations? Is it possible only to wait until the chairs stop swinging, or is there some way of stabilizing them? Once a chair is stabilized, do they run a ladder up so that the passengers can disembark? The video also shows people climbing to the top of the lift pylons. Does this have anything to do with the rescue? It’s not clear to me whether it’s a good idea, or even possible, to leave the chair via the pylon, since it would involve climbing up rather than down, and because if the chair starts to swing again it might hit the pylon.
The people on the pylons were apparently would-be rescuers, although what they hoped to achieve isn’t obvious. It looks as if they would just have to hang on until it stopped swinging - people pay for stuff like that at amusement parks. They are not all that far above ground (do these open lifts have a maximum height?) so it would probably be okay to drop down.
My brother and sister-in-law were once in a cable car that was halted in high winds, and they had to wait an hour or more until it stabilised before anything could be done. As I recall, they didn’t have to be rescued from the car once the wind had died down, but there are regular reports of mountain rescue helicopters being used to winch people off stranded cablecars, but depending on height above ground and local services available, sometimes rescuers winch along the cables to get people down.
Back when I was in college, a buddy of mine and I got trapped on a chair lift and had to be rescued. The chairs had a spring mechanism that attached them to the cable, so that they were stationary when you got in them, and then the operator would snap them on the cable, and off you’d go up the mountain. About half-way up, the chair in front of us came loose, and slid back down the cable, ramming into us. We were scared shitless, worried that a chain reaction would be started.
Anyway, it took awhile, but they stopped the cable, rigged some lines up from below, and lowered us down to the snow. I had a huge contusion on one leg and had to be sledded back to the infirmary, but my buddy we mostly unscathed and skied back down. We got a check for about $800 a few months later-- I think my buddy’s parents had their lawyer call up the resort and that was the resulting action.
You can’t put a straight ladder, which are typically longer, up against the chair lift because if/when the chair lift moves a bit, the ladder will now fall down. If it’s low enough, you could use a large A-frame ladder.
Chair lifts are typically closer to the ground than enclosed cars & therefore, rescue can be made from the ground.
Use of a weighted/lead rope would be utilized. Take a relatively lightweight rope with a weight (like a rock) on the end. Throw that up over the guide cable. The other end of your lead rope is tied to a much sturdier rope; as you pull down on your lead rope, the sturdier rope goes up & over the cable. This can be done multiple times.
The first ones would have a carabiner on them; have the rescuee/person in the chair clip the carabiner to the armrest on the chair. The rescuer then walks out creating an A / multiple attachment points for that chair. No they may not be able to stop all of the swinging, but they can at least bring it down to a manageable level.
Next, send another lead rope over, this one attached to a climbing/safety harness. With the right type of harness, it could be assembled around the rescuee while they are seated. They could then be clipped into the heavy-duty rope that was previously hoisted over the cable & be manually lowered by rescuers on the ground.
It’s always better to have a trained rescuer put the harness on the rescuee as they know how it works; they will attach it properly & snugly. You want the harness to be snug before it takes weight.
Thanks to everyone for the replies so far. It seems like all the rescue methods discussed so far require the chair or gondola to be stationary. So am I correct in assuming that there’s really nothing that can be done for passengers that are trapped in a chair that’s swaying violently in the wind? I love amusement park rides as much as the next person, but I’m not sure I’d want to be trapped on one in subzero temperatures with snow and cold wind blasting in my face for hours.
They rope the chair and have a bunch of people(or snow mobiles) pull on it to stabilize it against the wind. usually the rope goes across the back of the chair so it can be pulled level and downward with people on each side. Then they use regular method to lower the occupants down.
In my early teens I was on a chair lift and the bearings on the bull wheel went. They had to lower everyone off the entire lift. They a started at the bottom. We where 3 chairs from the summit, like 10 feet from a tower. It was a cold wait.
It was kinda ironic as it was a lift me and my friends would regularly jump off on the way up because at some points it was only 10 or 12 ft above ground, why couldn’t it break at one of those points for us.