Rescue on the ski hill (updated with photos)

Katie McKay says she's going to "take a break" from skiing.

McKay, 13, and two friends were among about 50 people stranded at Jack Pine Hill Saturday when a bearing failure caused the ski lift to break down around 1:30 p.m.

She was taken by snowmobile to a waiting ambulance after being rescued.

Katie was then transported to the North Bay General Hospital, but didn’t suffer any serious injury from her ordeal, dad Ted McKay said, greatly relieved.

“Katie just shivered all the way up in the ambulance and for about an hour afterwards, and just couldn’t get warm,” McKay said.

“But I think they got to her and got her down just in time. Had it been much longer she could have been in trouble.”

Wouldn’t be too comfortable
Ironically, McKay said, he had tried to dissuade Katie, 13, from going skiing because of the frigid temperatures North Bay is experiencing.

“I told her before she left that it’s really cold out and that it wouldn’t be too comfortable if something happened, “ McKay said.

“I don’t know if she even heard me because she really wanted to get going and meet her friends at the hill.”

McKay’s son Josh, 17, was also on the lift when it malfunctioned but was rescued before his sister.

“I just wanted to get off the lift chair and onto the ground,” Josh said.

Ted McKay said watching the experience wasn’t exactly what he had planned for the afternoon.

“I was just going to rent a few movies and stay in for the day. Still, I’m glad it’s over and everybody is alright.”

Katie described her experience as "freaky."

Jack Pine Hill spokeswoman Jennifer McCourt said the rescue team used the belay system, common in mountain and rock climbing, in which the skiers attached themselves to a harness and T-bar, and were then pulled down a guide rope to safety. It took about an hour for all the skiers to be brought down. For more information from McCourt click here.

Really scary
Hannah Larivee , 14, a Grade 9 student at Chippewa Secondary School, was one of the first people rescued.

“The lift stopped and at first we thought it was going to be about five minutes, but when it didn’t go any more at all, we started to get worried,” said Larivee, who estimated she’d spent about 45 minutes in the air.
“And then the lift people came and told us we were going to get down, that we were going to be the first ones to get down and we thought it was going to be really scary because we didn’t know how we were going to get down.”

Larivee said getting onto the pulley was “really scary.”
“It’s like the scariest thing I’ve ever done.”

Loud clang
Rick Calhoun watched his daughter Erin being rescued.

“I’m confident because these guys look like they know what they’re doing.”

After touching terra firma Erin said she had been “very cold and I was very scared.”
When it came time for her to get out of the seat and onto the pulley “I felt like I was just going to drop.”

She said she heard the ski lift stopped momentarily, “and then I heard this loud clang and it just stopped again and didn’t start.”

Stephen Sykes didn’t seem concerned about having to use the pulley.

“I worked here a couple of years ago, and that was part of our training,” Sykes said,
“But it sure is better being on the ground than up in the air when it’s this cold.”