Dangling Skier To Ski Again

Boy, 12, Falls 30 Feet From Lift; Is OK; Returning To Slopes

(CBS)  A 12-year-old skier had a chair lift ride he'll never forget on Saturday in Park City, Utah.

Anthony Trabert was about to get off when his backpack straps got caught on the safety bar. The lift kept going, and soon Anthony was dangling almost 30 feet above the ground, outside the lift.

"I was going back down the mountain, hanging by my neck," Trabert told The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm.

He finally wiggled out of the backpack and fell down. The snow and powder on the ground broke his fall.

Trabert says, as horrific as the ordeal was, he's getting right back on the skiing horse. "I'm feeling good. I hope to go skiing tomorrow (Saturday)."

Making matters worse for Trabert, he says his yelling at the lift operators did no good: "The two people that were in there were listening to music and talking and laughing, until my friends finally went up and started pounding on the door."

Trabert says he was dangling for more than three minutes. "I was really scared. I was just thinking... At first, mainly, I was thinking of getting down, and then toward the end, before I fell down, I was thinking that I was going to die."

Trabert's father Michael was skiing on the same mountain at the time.

The incident was caught on tape, and Michael Trabert told Storm, "It was really interesting because, when it happened, that night, we talked about it, and then Anthony described it to us, and you kind of have a picture in your mind of what you thought it was like, and then when you actually saw the footage and saw what it was really like, it was totally different.

"We were lucky," the elder Trabert continued. "The snow was pretty soft. He did fall into a mogul field. Moguls are for bumps, so luckily there was some snow in between, and the patrolmen were there when he landed and were right on top of him within about a second."