Posted: Jun 22, 2010 2:38 PM by KAJ News (Kalispell)
Updated: Jun 22, 2010 2:50 PM
A freak accident at Whitefish Mountain Resort sent one man to the hospital with a broken tailbone.
The accident took place on one of the resort's new "zip lines" on Sunday. A man was taking part in one the Mountain's zip line tours when he collided with the platform at the end of the ride. He broke his tailbone and needed to be transported to North Valley hospital.
Other riders who went before the man who was injured had no difficulty, but the man who struck the platform had jumped on the line in such a manner that it caused a wave of tension in the line and lowered it just enough that he struck the wooden platform.
Whitefish Mountain Resort spokesperson Donnie Clapp says they have shut that line down until the problem is eliminated, and added, "I think it was a very unfortunate coming together of circumstances that would be very unlikely to happen again, but that's not really good enough for us, so we're gonna make sure that we've isolated what caused it and fix it before we put that line back in the rotation."
The victim, whose name has not been released, remains at North Valley Hospital in stable condition with injuries to his tailbone.
Clapp told us that resort CEO Dan Graves visited the injured man in the hospital. The resort has two new zip lines that were scheduled to open soon, but Clapp says that has been put on hold until the other zip line is completely fixed.
The Whitefish Mountain Resort website describes the zip line tour:
Strap on a paragliding-style harness, click into your custom built cable trolley, and then fly! The 3-hour (approximately) zip line tour will thrill riders of all ages. Six separate spans with side-by-side zipping action will carry you more than 300 feet off the ground at speeds possibly topping 50 mph, with short hikes between each span.
Comments