Chairlift Accident at Maine’s Sugarloaf Mountain Injures Seven People
SUGARLOAF MOUNTAIN RESORT, Maine, March 21 (UPI) — At least seven skiers were injured on Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine on Saturday after the lift on which they rode stopped and began rolling backward on its own.
At the time of the incident about 230 people were riding the King Pine Quad, an over 3,000-foot long four-person lift built in 1988. The lift rolled back about nine chair lengths before it was stopped and evacuated of riders without further incident.
“It probably went backward in reverse for about 25 to 30 seconds,” Greg Hoffmeister, who was on the lift with his daughter, told WCBV. “And it just felt like something was wrong because it didn’t feel like it was a controlled reverse, it just felt like gravity was pulling it back.”
The seven injured riders, some of whom were hurt as the backward-moving chairs went through the loading area, were taken off the mountain for medical attention, with three attending local hospitals for non-life threatening injuries.
According to SugarLoaf officials, the King Pine Quad is inspected daily by employees and annually by the Maine Board of Elevator and Tramway Safety. It receives maintenance and testing every week, month and year.
In December 2010 up to eight people were injured on the mountain when five chairs from the Spillway East chairlift derailed and fell more than 30 feet to the ground. The following January, five of the injured sought legal representation for injury claims, but most settled out of court.
In October 2013, former Delaware state senator Michael Katz, who suffered a fractured spine and a traumatic brain injury in the fall, filed a lawsuit against Sugarloaf Mountain and its parent companies. The suit was halted in light of a counterclaim by Sugarloaf Mountain but went forward again in June 2014 after a court rejected the counterclaim.
According to a statement by the law firm representing Katz, the suit could go to trail by spring 2015.
