Newspaper editors grow accustomed to breaking news occurring at any moment. From late night car crashes to major announcements, newspaper reporters and editors have to be ready to spring into action at all hours of the day and night.

On Saturday, Dec. 14, 1985, Summit Sentinel reporter and editor Brad Johnson was enjoying his Saturday afternoon at a friend’s house in Dillon before he received an urgent call from the advertising manager of the paper. 

Although Johnson wasn’t in the newsroom that day, the advertising manager was — and what he heard over the police scanner quickly changed Johnson’s plans for the rest of the day.

“He was at the office, and he heard the traffic on the scanner,” Johnson said. “He called and explained that he did not know what was going on but that I needed to get to Keystone because they were calling every emergency agency in the county over there.”

Johnson wasted no time in getting to Keystone, charging into the marketing office at the resort and attempting to get a handle on what was developing. With little to no knowledge of the basis of the emergency, Johnson reportedly pressed staff at Keystone for information, but he was unable to learn any concrete details at the time.

Needing to get to the bottom of all of the county’s emergency vehicles speeding to the resort, Johnson ventured over to Keystone’s base area. 

“That is when all hell started to break loose,”Johnson said. “I learned that the bullwheel on the Teller Lift had fallen off. A lot of people were injured. I don’t think anyone knew how many right away.”

The Teller Lift accident injured a total of 49 people with two people later succumbing to their injuries. The ski lift accident is one of the worst in U.S. history with the Vail Gondola accident of 1976 killing four people. 

The Teller Lift was installed in 1984 when Keystone decided to expand over to North Peak. The Teller Lift was not the only addition the ski resort saw that year, but Nevada’s  Lift Engineering and Manufacturing Co. also installed a 143-cabin, high-speed gondola out of the River Run base areas as well as another Yan 1000 model triple chair.

The lifts and gondolas ran without a hitch for several months at the resort until a faulty weld on one of the lifts failed and caused the bullwheel to collapse to the ground. When the bullwheel collapsed at the top terminal of the lift, it caused the lift line to drop several feet, sending a slingshot motion through the lift line. The force of the lift dropping resulted in more than 60 people being thrown off the lift into the air and free falling to the ground below. 

According to Douglas DeMark, who was 21 at the time of the accident, the scene “looked like a war zone.” DeMark was riding one of the chairs in the first 200 yards from the top where the impact was most severe. 

DeMark said he was thrown about 40 feet into the air, but landed in an area of softer snow, resulting in less severe injuries. 

Newly hired risk manager and Keystone staff attorney Joe Zahm was also on the lift when the bullwheel suddenly fell. Like many others, Zahm was enjoying the mostly sunny, crisp December day when his world was flipped upside down.

Zahm was out working to assess the liabilities at the ski resort when the ski chair he was on came to a violent stop around tower 21. The force of the stop caused the guest next to him to fall 25 to 30 feet while Zahm hung on to the chair for dear life.

“I swung out of the lift and then back in,” Zahm said. “I remember calling into ski patrol headquarters with my left hand because my right hand was wrapped around the right support. There were no safety bars on the lift at that time. The whole scene remains a bit of a blur and a dream.”

Zahm remembers seeing fellow skiers littered across the Diamondback Trail below as well in the surrounding woods. With nowhere to go, Zahm observed from above as a mass of ski patrollers and first responders assessed the scene. 

Zahm and Johnson both remember how seamlessly the first responders worked that day. With skiers scattered across the mountain, patrollers, first responders and a group of convention-attending orthopedic surgeons and spinal specialists worked together to stabilize, assess and aid injured guests.

The group of orthopedic surgeons and spinal specialists out of Houston had just gotten off the lift and were at the top of the mountain when the accident occurred. Although the group had very little real-life experience responding to a trauma scene, the orthopedic surgeons leaned on their prior training to lend a helping hand in the situation.

“They were really credited with addressing the most seriously injured,” Johnson said. 

Johnson got the chance to talk to Keystone assistant ski patrol director Tom Hammerschmidt shortly after the accident occurred. Hammerschmidt was at the base of the ski resort when the lift broke, but when he arrived at the top of the Teller Lift he was taken aback by what he saw.

“It was pretty breathtaking,” Hammerschmidt said to Johnson in an interview. “As I looked down the lift line I saw a lot of patients. By then each patient had someone working on them at the time.”

Patrollers like Hammerschmidt responded to patients based on the severity of their injuries. While people clamored for first responders to stabilize a broken arm or leg, there were more pressing injuries to take care of first.

Eventually, patients were brought down to the base of Keystone mountain where many were airlifted to nearby hospitals or transported via ambulance.

“Ironically, Keystone was one of the first ski areas in Colorado to have a helipad at the base of the mountain as well as a medical clinic,” Johnson said. “The fact that they had that helipad and had that clinic there was really amazing.”

Johnson remembers five Flight for Life helicopters shuttling patients from Keystone to Denver. Despite the odds being stacked against them, ski patrollers and other first responders were able to band together in order to provide the best care they could provide. 

“All credit goes to them for their compassion and their immediate care,” Johnson said. “It was all available hands on deck.”

Zahm was cleared from his chairlift approximately 90 minutes after the accident, quickly being thrust into his role as the staff attorney at the resort. Zahm remembers being interviewed by several news outlets immediately after the accident, but after the last interview wrapped up, Zahm worked basically nonstop. 

“I was undoubtedly in a period of shock for an amount of time,” Zahm said. “I just worked all the time to anesthetize myself to what had really happened.”

Over the ensuing months, Zahm dealt with many lawsuits, depositions and settlements with those who were injured in the accident. In addition to filtering through the legal filings, Zahm also played a pivotal role in how Keystone went about relaying information about the accident to the victim’s families, the press and guests. 

The Teller Lift as well as the gondola in River Run Village were eventually replaced by new technology at the ski resort. The gondola cars were sold to people in Summit County while the Teller Lift was replaced with the Ruby Lift. 

“It was an incredible tragedy, but within that tragedy there is inspiration within the people who responded in an admirable and loving fashion,” Zahm said.