A man has been rescued after a freak accident at a ski resort in the United States which left him strangled by the strap of his own backpack.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The man was on a chair lift in Colorado at around 11am on Wednesday morning, local time, when he became tangled as he tried to unload at the top of a hill, witnesses said.
As the chairlift kept moving, the strap wrapped around the man's neck, causing him to lose consciousness and fall from the chair, dangling metres from the ground.
The near-fatal incident was recounted on social media by Mickey Wilson, a professional slackliner who rushed to the man's aid, cutting him free.
Wilson, 28, wrote on Instagram that the injured man - who he described as a friend of a friend - was on the lift behind him when he became tangled.
A photo posted by Mickey Wilson (@mickeywilsonslacker) on Jan 4, 2017 at 8:25pm PST
When he and other bystanders realised what had happened, Wilson joined a group who ran down the hill to attempt to free the man. Workers at the resort stopped the chair lift, and Wilson realised he could reach the unconscious man climbing the lift tower and walking almost ten metres across the ski lift's cable.
"The backpack had wrapped around his neck and he was unconscious, dangling 10 feet above the snow," Wilson wrote. "Panic was becoming terror as we realised we were about to watch our friend die in front of our helpless eyes.
"I realised I could climb the lift tower above the chair and climb onto the cable and shimmy down to him. I knew my slackline experience prepared me perfectly for this so I burst into action.
"I climbed the tower and slid down to the the chair. It was second nature, just like being on a slackline."
Wilson said he tried to break the strap by kicking it, before he was thrown a knife and managed to cut the man free.
In dramatic vision of the rescue, bystanders can be heard shouting "cut him loose" before the man falls to the snow, where ski field staff begin performing CPR.
A video posted by Mickey Wilson (@mickeywilsonslacker) on Jan 5, 2017 at 9:06pm PST
He was then rushed to hospital in an ambulance.
Wilson told The Denver Post he spoke to the man on Wednesday night and, though he was wearing a neck brace, he appeared to be in good health.
He was expected to be released from hospital on Friday.
The rescue is the second serious incident occur on ski lifts in Colorado in just over a week.
On December 29, a 40-year-old woman was killed when she fell more than four metres from a ski lift at a different resort.
