A chairlift at Devil’s Head Resort in Southern Wisconsin ground to a halt last night and then started running backwards at high speed. Witnesses said the lift operator tried to shutdown the 2,800ft chairlift, but it kept running backwards while sparks flew out of it. Some decided to jump off the double-chairlift while others held on until they slammed into a wooden ceiling at the base of the lift.

Night skiing in Wisconsin is great because it’s the only time you can ski without waiting 10 minutes in every lift line. It gets a lot colder at night, so you often have to brave temps that drop into below-zero double-digits. Snow doesn’t really stay too soft in these temps, so the landing when jumping off the chair is more like hitting an ice rink than a ski run. Considering what you have to put up with to ski at night in Wisconsin, I’m sure these people took a backwards running chair that slams your head into a wooden wall in stride.

Three people were seriously injured, and the other 10 suffered minor injuries. The ski resort and local sheriff’s department are examining what caused the lift to run in reverse.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 7:37 am and is filed under Skiing, Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.