Helicopter rescue for 44 skiers stuck on chair lift in French Pyrenees
Emergency services were called after the machine broke down, trapping skiers for more than two hours
The skiers were left stuck on a ski chair lift more than 10 metres off the ground
Supavadee butradee / Shutterstock
Forty-four skiers, including children, have been rescued by helicopter after becoming trapped on a broken-down chair lift for two hours in a ski resort in the Pyrenees.
A breakdown on February 7, at the Cambre d鈥橝ze ski station near Saint-Pierre-dels-Forcats (Pyr茅n茅es-Orientales) caused the holidaymakers to become stuck, hanging more than 10 metres off the ground.
When the chair lift could not be restarted, staff 鈥渋mmediately triggered the procedure provided for in our operating procedures and called our air rescue teams", , director of ski transport Altiservice.
Carole Jamin, one of the skiers who was trapped and rescued, told BFMTV: 鈥淭hey came by helicopter, and the rescuers attached us with harnesses and lowered us to the piste. It felt like it took a long time, but I think they did their best, as quickly as they could. It was impressive.鈥�
The rescue required eight piste workers, around 12 gendarmes from mountain rescue team the peloton de haute montagne (PGHM) d鈥橭ss茅ja, and the dangerous areas rescue team GRIMP (groupe de recherche et d鈥檌ntervention en milieu p茅rilleux).
Major Eddie Marty, from the PGHM, told BFMTV that the successful evacuation underlined the importance of joint training exercises across mountain rescue teams.
He said: 鈥淲orking with several people who are not part of the same group [emergency team] is always complicated, but it went extremely well in this case. We all know each other from doing joint exercises, and we saw the benefit of all these exercises during this incident.鈥�
No one was injured in the incident.
The chair lift was repaired on Monday evening and is now back in normal operation.
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