Russian Ski Lift

[Blindside]

In Mother Russia, ski lift take you!

The last video shows the chairs getting tangled up. That'd be scary as hell.

At least eight people were injured after a chair lift at a Georgia ski resort malfunctioned, Georgia Today and Russian media outlets reported.

Videos of the horrifying incident emerged Friday out of Gudauri, a resort on the Greater Caucasus mountain range in Georgia — though they could just as easily have been plucked from every skier’s worst nightmares.

According to the Russian newspaper Pravda Report, the chair lift was somehow shifted into reverse by an operator, which caused it to malfunction.

As videos show, the lift then began hurtling passengers back toward the bottom of the mountain at high speed, to the audible horror of bystanders.

It’s hard to pick out the most alarming aspect of the videos.

Some skiers could be seen jumping off onto the mountain as their chairs sped backward. Others held on until they were at the bottom of the lift — only to be flung into the air by the force of their chair getting whipped back around the line.

At least one skier appeared to be trapped on the ground near the chairs’ lowest point, where a pile of deformed metal chairs would later accumulate as they slammed into one that had fallen off the cable.

Throughout, screaming onlookers can be heard pleading for the lift to be stopped.

Eight people were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to Pravda Report.

[kellyhound]

Updated: 21:01

A ski-lift accident in Georgia’s winter resort of Gudauri has left 11 with minor and moderate injuries, the Mountain Resorts Development Company of the Ministry of Economy of Georgia has reported.

No fatalities have been recorded. Four of the 11 have already been discharged from hospital.

Those injured were immediately transported to a local hospital by three emergency brigades. The other seven will receive treatment in Tbilisi.

Officials said none of the individuals have life-threatening injuries.

All the treatment and transportation expenses will be covered by the Ministry of Economy.

Earlier: 14:26

A ski-lift accident in Georgia’s eastern Gudauri resort has left 8 people with minor injuries, the Mountain Resorts Development Company of the Ministry of Economy of Georgia has reported.

No fatalities have been recorded. One of the eight injured has already been discharged from hospital, the Georgian Health Minister David Sergeenko told the media.

Those injured were immediately transported to the local hospital by three emergency brigades. If necessary, the individuals will transported to Tbilisi by special emergency vehicles.

However, as Sergeenko stated most of the affected individuals have received light injuries.

Among the injured are the citizens of Sweden and Ukraine.

Only two cases need to be observed. One of the injured, a citizen of Ukraine, has broken a hand during the incident, and has a light injury on the head, while another, a citizen of Sweden, is pregnant and feels pain in the waist,” Sergeenko stated.

All the treatment and transportation expenses will be covered by the Ministry of Economy.

The exact reason for the ski-lift incident has yet to be found.

The Ministry of Economy stated that they have already contacted the ski-lift producer, Austrian Doppelmayr Garaventa group for them to react to the incident immediately and send experts to clarify the reasons for the malfunction.

It is speculated that the culprit may have been a voltage fluctuation or brake issues.

[booboo2718]

It's comical because no one got seriously injured but some one could have been killed. Wicked.

[Blindside]

Originally Posted by booboo2718

It's comical because no one got seriously injured but some one could have been killed. Wicked.

I agree completely I had to double check to make sure this didn’t need to go in the death section. Thankfully there were only minor injuries as it could have been much worse.

[ZappaFan101]

This is insane...

[Vampyre666]

Looks like someone intentionally did that. If there was a sane person operating this, i'm pretty sure they would have hit the stop button right away.

[deanmine]

Who died?

[quetza]

meh. hardly can conclude it was intentional just from the video

[Pink_spyder]

I feel sorry for those that got hurt but...
Hot damn! I would love to take a ride on that!

[gimlet]

I heard about this happening in the 1970's but never saw a video. Makes sense, there is more mass (people + chairs) going up than coming down (empty chairs). So, a motor or brake fails and it runs backwards until the people are gone. It appeared to stop or slow after the last people jumped.