Opinions mixed for cable car accident at Winter Games
Updated: 2008-01-23 22:17
Yabuli -- Organizers of the ongoing Chinese national winter games imputed the stunning cable car accident on Wednesday to improper operation by the passenger, but many others had different opinions.
The accident took place about 20 minutes after the K90m individual event when Hou Shuangmei, a female broadcaster for the ski jumping results, tried to take the cable car downhill.
The car went so fast that Hou had no time to pull down the protective handrail. Unfortunately, she slided off the cable car at a place which is about five to six meters above the hillside. Hou broke one part of her lumbar vertebra and sufferred severe fractures in thighbone and anklebones.
Zhou Yiyun, the director responsible for course and facilities of the organizing committee in Yabuli of the Winter Games, told a press conference this evening that Hou did not take the cable car at a safe location in the cable stop.
Zhou said that the organizing committee had assigned assistants to every cable car stop to instruct and help passengers use the contraption.
"She (Hou) chose a position to get on the car, which is too far from the proper place," Zhou said. "The assistant in the stop was helping a photographer who just got hurt in taking a cable car, so he could not pay more attention to Hou."
However, the slightly wounded photographer said that the assistant helping him was called from downhill after he was hurt and no one at the stop helped him get on the car.
In addition, no instructive boards or manuals have been found at the stop.
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