Gage snapped into his bindings, then pushed off, cutting through the soft, albeit dangerous, treed terrain. He ducked under a branch and emerged into the free, catching air. No fancy stuff, just necessity, and he landed easily.
Two more turns and he’d reached the first victim.
The kid had fallen nearly forty feet. His screams echoed through the valley of the Timber Bowl, bouncing off the edges and back to the terrified passengers of the stalled lift who were witnesses to the carnage as he lay broken below his chair.
His buddy, clearly possessed with the same tankful of smarts, had probably tried to stop him, lunging forward and slipping off the chair. The hero now dangled half on, half off the chair, his arms wrapped around the bar, his leg hooked on the seat, his boot wedged in to the side rail to secure him. Still, the kid was perilously close to joining his buddy below in a pile of broken bones.
Gage snapped out of his gear in seconds, lifted off his goggles, and dropped beside the kid who writhed in pain in the snow, his leg brutally twisted under him.
“Ski patrol. I’m here to help,” Gage said. He didn’t want to move the kid or splint his leg until he could get a neck collar on him. However, blood already saturated his gray ski pants, and the protruding bulk of bone from above his knee suggested a compound fracture.
“What’s your name?” Gage pulled off the kid’s mitten and reached for a pulse.
“Hunter Corbin.” He wore a ski helmet, and blond hair trickled out the sides and back.
“How old are you?” Gage timed the beats. A little high and thready.
“Fifteen. It’s my first time out West.”
“Your parents around?” Gage kept his voice even, calm.
In the meantime, Hunter’s friend dangled, screaming, forty feet overhead.
Gage wanted to feel sorry for Hunter, but whatever had possessed the kid to—
“They’re at the bottom.” He groaned, tears filling his eyes. “My cell phone. It fell—I wanted to get it before it got lost. It’s a brand-new iPhone.”
Gage took out his radio. “Ski patrol, this is Watson. I have a fifteen-year-old male with what looks like a compound femur fracture. Possible neck injury. I need a dual sled, a neck collar, leg splint, and a lift rescue team.” He looked up. “And fast.”
“Copy, Watson. We have a team on the express lift en route.”
The express lift, on the other side of the mountain. Ten minutes, at least.
Gage glanced up at the dangling victim, assessing. “What’s your friend’s name, Hunter?”
“Adam. He was just trying to help me.”
“Right.” He got up, cupping his hands over his eyes. Overhead, spectators watched in silence, two or three to a chair, probably traumatized by the tragedy that had occurred on their vacation. A few held up their phones, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the event made YouTube.
Hopefully no one would recognize him, or worse, tag him.
Just when he’d put the past to rest. Or tried to. “Adam, how you doing up there?”
A stupid question, but he hoped to keep the kid calm.
“I’m gonna fall!”
“Keep holding on, we’re going to get you out of this.”
Gage could see the lure of the stunt—the chair had stopped parallel to the tower, a mere three feet from the lift. And, with the rungs affixed to the side, Hunter might have landed that leap if he hadn’t been wearing snowboarder boots and bulky mittens.
Or, if he were a trained mountain climber.
Gage had a lift letdown system in his pack, a weighted ball attached on one end, a sling on the other, but he strongly doubted that Adam could either catch and throw the rope over the lift cable or get the sling around his body.
“Don’t let go!” Gage yelled again and grabbed his pack, retrieving the assembly. Then he headed over to the tower. “I’m coming to you, Adam.” He jumped and grabbed on to the lower rung, pulled himself up to the next rung, and got his feet on the lowest bar. He began to climb.
The kid was swinging his body in an attempt to slide back onto the chair seat. The chair began to sway, moving the other chairs around it. Screams lifted from the riders.
“Stop swinging, dude!” Gage yelled, seeing in his mind the entire rig detaching and crashing to the ground, crushing Adam’s already injured friend.
In fact, they might have an entire mountain full of injuries.
Gage pulled himself up parallel to the kid. He could just barely reach out and touch him when he extended himself. His grasp wasn’t enough to pull the kid in, but he could help secure him.
He threw the weighted ball over the ski lift cable. It fell to the ground.
“Listen up, Adam. I’m going to put this sling over your head, and very carefully you’re going to work it down under your armpits, one arm at a time. Then I’m going to climb down and secure the line to the tower. The sling will keep you from falling.”