8-year-old boy rescued after dangling from chairlift in B.C.

VANCOUVER — Five quick-thinking boys are being hailed as heroes for rescuing a screaming eight-year-old child dangling from a chairlift at Grouse Mountain ski resort in North Vancouver.

Video obtained by Global News shows a group of boys in action as they grab a piece of orange netting used as fencing and rush beneath the ski lift while a man above clings to the boy as he hangs from the chair.

Twelve-year-old Joshua Ravensbergen said he and his buddies are home schooled and went to Grouse Mountain for a day of skiing when they looked up and noticed a boy in trouble.

“People were there but they were just standing looking at the kid, not knowing what to do,” he said, adding he feared the child would be injured if they didn’t do something to help.

Ravensbergen said one of the boys in the group pointed to a fence and they all rushed to grab it and hold it under the chairlift.

He said the boy appeared to have fallen from the chair moments earlier and was left hanging, but it wasn’t stopped and kept going higher and higher so it was too late for him to jump to safety.

Samuel North, another in the group of rescuers, said he and his friends regularly ski on the mountain north of Vancouver.

“It was just instinct,” he said of their quick action Wednesday afternoon.

North said the child on the chairlift was with his parents and three-year-old sister, who the father was also trying to hang on to while struggling to cling to his son.

He said another boy, an adult and a ski instructor, who were all part of the same ski group, scrambled to grab on to the netting under the chairlift as they urged the child to kick off his skis and jump.

North said the child’s parents thanked them all afterwards and he seemed a bit shaken up.

Grouse Mountain Resorts spokeswoman Julia Grant said in a statement the boy was uninjured but was taken to hospital as a precautionary measure.

The company’s president will meet privately with the rescuers to express his gratitude and the boys will receive season passes to the mountain, she said.

An investigation is underway in accordance with industry protocol, Grant said.