Group of teenagers save an eight-year-old boy from falling meters off a chairlift in Canada after losing his grip
- A group of young skiers are being praised for saving a boy who was dangling from a chairlift on Grouse Mountain
- The eight-year-old boy was dangling and eventually lost his grip
- Skier James MacDonald, 14, had been skiing and snowboarding with his friends
- He rallied another group of teens and helped gather some netting and padding together to help create a net for the youngsters and give him a soft landing
A group of teenagers ended up coming to the rescue of an eight-year-old boy who almost fell from a chairlift onto the snow at a Vancouver ski resort.
The eight-year-old slipped and was left grasping and dangling from the side of a chair-lift on Grouse Mountain some 25-feet in the air as he held onto his father.
One of the teenagers, 14-year-old James Macdonald, told CNN he didn’t think the boy could hold on for very long, but his quick-thinking saved the boy from serious injury.
A group of young skiers are being praised for saving a boy who was dangling from a chairlift on Grouse Mountain
Despite shaky camera footage the boy can be clearly seen dangling from the chairlift
The eight-year-old boy was dangling and eventually lost his grip
He asked a nearby man to get some orange netting which is normally used to mark out where the skiing boundaries are. The netting was used to catch the boy in case in fell out of the chair.
‘He was starting to flail about and get extremely panicked,’ Macdonald told CNN.
Macdonald said his friends, Gabriel Neilson, and 12-year-old Josh Ravensbergen, had been skiing down the mountain when they offered help along with a man and a woman who were close by.
Neilson tried to calm down the boy as he stripped off padding from a pole and places it on the netting to give it more support.
A group of fellow skiers grabbed nearby orange plastic netting for which to catch the boy
He fell from the chair left but a group of teenagers were standing below with netting to cushion his fall
The boy fell from the chairlift and ended up landing right in the center of the netting
The boy’s father clings onto his son for as long as he was able to before he lost his grip
Quick-thinking skiers used some of the plastic netting to in order to use it as a safety net
Once the net was completed, Neilson told the boy to remove his skis and then asked the boy’s dad to release his grip holding his young child.
After the father released his grip the boy fell safely into the padding that was being held by around 10 other people.
A cheer went up as the boy was safely captured and avoided any serious injury.
The boy was then sent to hospital as a precautionary measure although the boy suffered no serious injuries.
As a reward, the boys were each given a complimentary season pass from the president of Grouse Mountain, Michael Cameron, said Grant.
The boy can be seen falling from the chairlift plummeting towards the ground
Some orange plastic netting was used along with some foam in an effort to soften the boy’s fall
Around ten other skiers were gathered below trying to help catch the boy – and it worked
Some foam from around the chair lift poles was also used to cushion the boy’s fall
The little boy can be seen still on the floor after his fall. He was taken to hospital for a check-up
The incident happened at Grouse Mountain ski resort near Vancouver, pictured on Sunday