Video: Teen falls 45 feet from ski lift

By Phaedra Haywood
The New Mexican

SANTA FE, N.M. — A 17-year-old Albuquerque teen who fell about 45 feet from a ski-lift chair onto steep, snowy terrain at Ski Santa Fe a few weeks ago is reportedly OK.

“Basically, the kid is home and he is fine,” said Cody Sheppard, the ski patrol director at Ski Santa Fe. “It was kind of a dramatic deal. I guess he was attempting to throw a snowball to the chair in front of him, where some friends were, and when he threw the snowball, the momentum just carried him out of the chair. He did hang on for awhile, but then he had to drop.”

A video of the Feb. 2 incident, which was posted Feb. 18 on YouTube, shows the young man (whose name Sheppard declined to provide) hanging by both arms off the inside edge of a chairlift occupied by one other person. The 18-second video — titled Kid Falls Off Of Chair Lift 45+ Feet — then shows the young man plummeting onto the steep run below, where he flips over and slides partway down the slope before stopping. Sheppard said the teen was taken off the mountain via helicopter, as a precaution, because it was hard to tell what internal injuries he might have sustained. “TriipyHD,” who posted the video, noted under the clip that the teen’s injuries included “concussion, skull fracture, collapsed lung and a lacerated liver.”

Full story: Teen OK after ski lift tumble