People screamed and skiers jumped for their lives after four chairs plunged from a high-speed ski lift at Whistler Mountain, killing one person and injuring at least nine others.
Other skiers were suspended up to four hours in the dark on swaying chairs before they were rescued Saturday night."It looked like a scene out of an earthquake," said skier Steve Hills, who jumped about 20 feet to the ground after being stranded for two hours.
"Freaked-out mothers were screaming that their kids and husbands were still up on the lift.
"The chair bounced a bit when it stopped and then started and stopped and started and stopped. We just threw our gear down and jumped."
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Derel Little said officers were investigating one report of skiers bouncing and swinging chairs before the accident.
The accident apparently resulted from a failure in the clamping device in the last of the four chairs that fell, causing it to shoot down the cable and produce chain-reaction crashes with chairs in front of it, said Doug Forseth, president of Whistler Mountain Ski Corp.
Police identified the dead skier as Trevor Michael John MacDonald, 25, of Vancouver.