The accident happened at about 10:30 a.m. when the Spillway East chairlift derailed from the lift's eighth tower. Five chairs on the lift fell 25 to 30 feet to the ground, the resort said.
The injured skiers were treated and were being transported to a local hospital. At the time of the accident, there were 220 people dangling on the lift in the frigid winds.
The ski patrol responded to the resort and evacuated the people from the lift, the resort said in a statement at 1 p.m.
Sugarloaf Maine Ski Lift Injuries
The resort said the cause of the incident was under investigation.
Nineteen-year-old Kaitlyn Dingley arrived at the scene of the incident minutes before Sugarloaf’s ski patrol, although she didn’t see it happen.
Dingley, a 2009 graduate of Carrabassett Valley Academy, a high school associated with Sugarloaf that centers around skiing, was on her way down the slopes when “people told me not to go [that way] because something horrible happened.”
She arrived to see people lying on the ground after their chairs had plummeted to the ground, while people in the still-suspended chairs looked on, horrified that they might be next.
“We didn’t let any of [the injured people] move. They all had back pain, so we wanted to get them to the hospital for X-rays," she said in a telephone interview.
Sugarloaf Maine Ski Lift Injuries
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