Investigation into how coat caught on ski lift ongoing

The New Jersey skier who suffocated to death after his coat became caught on a ski lift at Vail Mountain this month may not have fallen through an opening in a chairlift seat as originally thought, Eagle County authorities said Monday.

At least one witness told authorities that the chairlift’s folding seat was raised when Jason Varnish, 46, and another man loaded the lift in the resort’s Blue

Sky Basin area on Feb. 13 — creating a gap where the seat should have been — but investigators aren’t sure whether Varnish fell, jumped or was pushed off the chairlift, Eagle County communications manager Justin Patrick said Tuesday.

“He was either propelled off the lift, or self-ejected, or in some way was removed from the chairlift,” he said. As Varnish left the lift, his coat caught on the chair, and then pulled tight around his chest and abdomen, and suffocated him, according to Eagle County

Coroner Kara Bettis.

Patrick said Tuesday that he believed Varnish was “dangling by his coat” and the “weight of his body constricted his clothing.”

The man who boarded the lift with Varnish, a friend who had been skiing with Varnish that day, also left the chairlift but landed safely, Patrick said, adding that authorities do believe the chairlift seat was raised when the men loaded and that the seat’s position impacted the accident.

“He bailed too, or was ejected, and obviously it’s a freak accident if your coat gets caught,” Patrick said.

In the past year, at least 15 people were injured when they fell from Colorado ski lifts and one person was hurt after jumping from a lift, according to records obtained by The Denver Post from the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board, which regulates and inspects ski lifts in the state. A spokesman for the board, Lee Rasizer, repeatedly refused interview requests from The Post and insisted on

communicating solely through email, which The Post declined to do.

The records obtained through the state’s open records laws show that lift and tramway operators reported 90 incidents of mechanical and electrical malfunctions, evacuations, falls and other problems to the board between mid-February 2019 and mid-February 2020. About 375 systems are licensed in Colorado.

Thirteen incidents required evacuations, according to the data, and injuries were reported in 17 incidents. Nearly all injuries were caused when people fell or jumped from lifts, but there were also injuries reported during a Jan. 6 incident in which a gust of wind caused a carrier to derail as it entered a terminal, according to the data, which did not include the locations of where the incidents occurred.

A 5-year-old child fell 21 feet from a carrier Jan. 12, according to the data, and an 8-year-old child fell 16 feet from a lift after the arm bar was raised in March 2019. The day after that incident, a man was hurt after he jumped from a carrier to try to retrieve his phone, which he had dropped.

The last person killed on a ski lift in Colorado was 40-year-old Kelly Huber, who fell from a lift with her two daughters after their chair hit a tower at Ski Granby Ranch in 2016. Before that, a manager at Winter Park Ski Resort died in 2002 after suffering seizure-like symptoms and falling from a lift.

In 2017, a man at Arapahoe Basin was suspended from a chairlift when his backpack became tangled in a chair. The man hung from his neck about 10 feet above the snow for several minutes and lost consciousness. He was rescued by a resort guest who happened to be a professional slackliner and was able to climb a lift tower, slide 30 feet across the lift’s cable and cut the man loose.

Injuries and deaths on ski lifts are rare, according to the National Ski Areas Association, a trade organization headquartered in Lakewood that represents more than 300 alpine resorts. More than 53 million people rode lifts and aerial tramways during the 2017-18 season, according to the association. Most falls from lifts are caused by rider error, rather than a problem with the lift itself, according to the association.

Adrienne Isaac, director of marketing and communications at the association, said it’s important for riders to follow best practices when riding lifts, such as securing loose clothing and removing pole straps.

“Ski areas and associations have done a good job educating their guests on how to load, ride and unload lifts safely,” Isaac said.

Vail Resorts declined to speak with The Denver Post and said in a one-sentence statement that it would incorporate the coroner’s findings into the resort’s internal investigation into Varnish’s death.

A spokeswoman for the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating Varnish’s death in tandem with the resort and the coroner’s office, said investigators do not know if Varnish fell through the seat, and the investigation is ongoing. She declined to identify the man who was with Varnish on the chairlift.