++CLIENTS PLEASE NOTE: THIS VIDEO HAS BEEN EDITED++

On January 4th, 2017 I woke to a winter blizzard sweeping the Colorado Rocky Mountains. At 4:45am I made a lunch and packed my bags, throwing my knife haphazardly into the bag with my lunch, a mistake that would play a critical role later that day. I drove through the storm to Arapahoe Basin, one of the highest ski areas in Summit County. I was scheduled that day to teach ski school, my part time job for the winter. Before the lifts opened, I was walking to the cafe at the ski area when an old friend named Billy I hadn't seen in years recognized me. I told him if I didn't get a ski lesson that day, I could ski with him. We decided to have breakfast together. He was skiing that day with Hans, another old friend of mine. Billy's other friend was Rich, who I had never met before. We ate breakfast and I left to go teach ski school. We agreed to meet up at 10:30 am if I didn't have to teach a ski lesson that day. I ended up getting the day off and so I met up with Hans, Billy and Rich. Our first chairlift ride together was on the Lenawee Chairlift, one of the highest lifts in North America at 12,526 ft above sea level. Lenawee is a 3 person chairlift so Rich went ahead with strangers on Chair #7. Billy, Hans and I rode chair #8 behind Rich.

The chairlift ride was uneventful and at the top, we did not see anything out of the ordinary. The snow storm had created some extreme conditions. It was snowing very heavily, the wind was bitterly cold, all of which created minimal visibility. Thus, we did not see what happened to Rich ahead of us. After the fact, we can speculate what happened though. At the top, Rich tried to get off the chairlift just like we've done thousands of times before. He was wearing a backpack. The waist strap to his backpack was caught on the chair unbeknownst to Rich, and as he tried to ski away, he was immediately jerked backwards by his backpack attached to the chair and pulled down the hill. During this time, the chest strap to his backpack wrapped around his neck. The chair continued down the hill and Rich was pulled off the ground into the air. He likely struggled to free himself but was unable to do so.

At the top, Billy, Hans and I unloaded but didn't see any of this happen to Rich. We had no idea where he was or what was going on. Then we heard screams behind us. We turned around and saw people yelling and screaming at the lift operator. After about five or ten seconds the lift stopped. I took off my skis and we ran down the hill to see what was happening. This was our first view of the scene. Rich's chair had gone around the bullwheel and traveled down the hill about 40 feet. He was hanging below the chair. His backpack was wrapped around his neck. His feet were about 10 feet off the snow. He was hanging about 3 feet below the chair, unconscious and unresponsive. I didn't realize Rich was being strangled until Hans started yelling, "He's choking!" Billy, Hans, the lift operator and I tried to make a human pyramid to get to him. It didn't work at all. We toppled over into the snow. People were yelling for ski patrol but there was no sign of them yet. I asked if the lift went in reverse and the lift operator said, "NO!" At this point, I realized Rich was going to die if we didn't come up with a way to get to him.

This is where the story gets really wild. I have yet to mention what my full time job is. Since 2012, I have been slacklining professionally, competing and performing around the world. Slacklining is a lot like tightrope walking except instead of walking on a tight rope, we walk, surf, and jump on a stretchy piece of flat webbing. Webbing is basically flat rope, much like the backpack strap that was now trying to strangle our friend.

So, being a professional slackliner who walks and climbs around on ropes, webbing and cables for a living, I knew what I had to do. I ran up the hill to the first lift tower. I threw off my gloves to maximize my dexterity. Someone started yelling at me to not climb the tower but I ignored the warning. I climbed the maintenance ladder and got to the top of the tower, about 30 feet above the ground. I climbed across the cable pulleys and straddled the cable much like a cowboy riding a horse. I shimmied down the cable about 30 feet to get to chair #7 where Rich was hanging. I gripped the cable and swung down onto the chair. I landed on the chair and immediately assessed the situation. I saw that Rich's waist belt was lodged in the crack of the chair and his chest strap was wrapped around his neck. I reached into my jacket pocket and realized my knife was not there! Without my knife I tried to break the strap on the backpack by kicking the pack. No matter how hard I kicked the backpack though, it wouldn't break. Rich had been hanging by his neck for over four minutes at this point and was certainly close to death.

Just then, eight ski patrollers in black and red jackets arrived! 20 feet below me, one of the patrollers shouted, "KNIFE!" I looked down and immediately knew what was about to happen. He squared up, and threw a black, folding knife skyward. It was a perfect throw. I reached out and caught the knife in mid air. My hands were numb from the cold but somehow I managed to quickly unfold the knife. I leaned over and sliced the strap. Rich fell towards the ground. He hit the snow below and powder flew everywhere. The ski patrollers immediately began working on him. They screamed, "he's not breathing!". They began CPR and after a minute I heard one of them say, "He's breathing!" and I was extremely relieved. However I knew about oxygen depravation. He had been hanging for 5 minutes and it was possible he had brain damage. They rushed him to the hospital in Denver. Those were some tough hours but that night, Hans and Billy video called me from the hospital. Rich was awake and smiling. He said, "thanks for saving my life Mickey". I said, "No problem bro, I always wanted to climb one of those things anyways"