A chair was blown right off a ski lift at a Michigan resort last weekend, in an incident a manager has described as a "freak accident". Luckily, there were no injuries; nobody was using the chair when it became disconnected, and no one was skiing or snowboarding nearby at the the time.
Nick Ross, general manager of Bittersweet Ski Resort, told News Channel 3 that a sudden gust of wind pushed the chair into the lift's communication line, also called a comm cable, which sends a signal between the top and bottom towers. This ripped off the detachable grip (the part that connects the chair to the line), causing the chair to fall off the haul rope on the downhill side.
