By Aaron Paton
aaron@canmoreleader.com
Wednesday May 07, 2008
Details of a grisly accident at Sunshine Village that claimed the life of a 25-year-old man were presented in Banff Provincial Court on Tuesday.
Lindsay Weidman was operating the Standish chairlift on August 31, 2004 when Karl Stunt was fatally crushed.
Stunt had been doing maintenance work on lift towers that afternoon with lift mechanic Stephane Pigeon, who also testified Tuesday. Stunt and Pigeon traveled down the lift on a special maintenance chair constructed out of two platforms, with one upper and one lower level.
Stunt was riding on the upper platform, which is not safe according to the lift operations manual, the court heard. A staircase attached to the platform was also in the upright position, which is also not in accordance to safety practices at Sunshine Village, according to testimony heard during the trial.
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As they approached the end of the line, Weidman yelled at Pigeon to ask where exactly he wanted the lift to stop.
She said she could not hear his response so she re-entered the lift shack containing lift controls and waited for him to give a radio command to “stop.”
“That’s when I heard and saw the work chair crash,” Weidman said.
She said the work chair struck violently near the bottom of the lift.
Stunt was straddling the bar that connects the maintenance chair to the cable, with one leg on either side. The chair kept moving, the metal twisted and dropped a couple of feet, according to her testimony.
“I looked at Stephan and his eyes were really big. And then I looked at Carl… he was hanging straight out and there was blood coming from everywhere.”
She asked Stephan if she should power down the lift.
“He wouldn’t answer me because he had just noticed Carl and he was looking at him,” she said.
Two men came running from the Sunshine Village Resort hotel at the base of the Standish lift.
The lift was powered down and the two men climbed up onto the chair to try and help Stunt.
Weidman added that Pigeon was very quick to aid Stunt, immediately radioing helicopter and ambulance assistance after the incident occurred.
Pigeon and Weidman had worked together doing tower maintenance three years prior to the accident. Pigeon trained Weidman on the job.
“He was showing me the ins and outs,” she said of his tower maintenance training.
Weidman, was an experienced lift operator studying to become a journeyman millwright the year the accident occurred. She said she had learned safety procedures for the lift during hands-on training. She said Sunshine Village Corp. had not explicitly directed her to review important written safety material available to her.
Weidman said she didn’t notice that Carl was on the upper work platform until it was too late. Nor did she notice that the staircase was in the upright position, a possible cause of the crash.
Weidman said she had heard maintenance crewmembers talking about a crash that occurred earlier that year involving an unoccupied maintenance chair.
“The crew members were laughing and joking about it,” she said.
No safety meeting was held following the non-fatal collision, she said.
Sunshine Village Corp. enacted new safety procedures following the fatal crash that requires lift operators and maintenance workers to communicate via radios to ensure no one is on the top platform and that the staircase is in the down position.
When Prosecutor Brian Caruk asked Weidman if she knew that the lift should be running at 150 feet per minute, she replied “no.”
Sunshine Village Corp. is amidst a ten-day trial to determine if the ski hill is responsible for the death Stunt.
Sunshine Village Corp. faces charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act of failing to ensure the health and safety of its workers, failing to ensure workers were trained in the safe operation of equipment, failing to ensure the assessment and identification of hazards on the worksite and failing to ensure equipment was operated in accordance with the manufacturer’s specifications.
The maximum penalty for a first offence under the Occupational Health and Safety Act is $500,000 and/or six months in prison.
The incident occurred on Aug. 31, 2004. Stunt, 25, died six days later.
The trial continues today, with Pigeon expected to give further testimony.
Stunt’s mother, father and brother have been attending the trial.
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