PARK CITY, Utah (KSTU) — A Utah ski resort employee died after a tree fell onto a ski lift on Monday.

“In my 19-plus years in law enforcement, I’ve never heard something like this happening," said Capt. Andrew Wright with Summit County Sheriff's Office.

The 29-year-old male employee, who was a ski patroller at Park City Mountain resort, was identified as Christian Helger.

Helger was on the Canyons Village side of the resort aboard a chairlift when a pine tree fell onto it.

Wright said investigators think Helger fell close to 50 feet. Sheriff’s deputies had to enter the ravine through chest-deep snow before finding Helger's body.

“We don’t know right now what the cause of death is,” Wright said. “It could be an injury from the fall. It could also be asphyxiation or suffocation from being in the deep snow. The medical examiner will determine that cause of death.”

Vail Resorts spokesperson Sara Huey said company policy requires employees to restrain themselves by lowering the safety bar when riding a chair lift. Wright said investigators are trying to determine if the bar was down when Helger fell.

Ski lifts and gondolas in Utah are regulated by the Passenger Ropeway Safety Committee, a division of the state’s department of transportation. Rules require lift or gondola operators to file a report to the committee within five days of an accident.

Robert Miles, traffic and safety director at the Utah Department of Transportation, whose responsibilities include the lift oversight, said the committee will receive the report from Park City Mountain Resort and determine what follow-up is needed.

“Ski lifts should have a 5-foot clearance around them when they’re operating from vegetation, tree branches, trees, anything of that sort,” Miles said Tuesday.

Miles added that trees can tower above and within the radius of a lift; only the ones that are dying or look as if they are about to fall need to be cleared.

“During an inspection, that would be noted, and it would be [the resort’s] responsibility to resolve that issue," said Miles, who has been in his post six years and couldn’t recall another example of a tree falling onto a lift.

Ski lift deaths in Utah are rare. Perhaps the worst case was in July 1966 when a woman and a teenage girl died at Timp Haven, which later became the Sundance Mountain Resort.

The Utah Occupational Safety and Health confirmed Tuesday it, too, will investigate the workplace death.

This story was originally reported on fox13now.com.

California ski resort removes a derogatory slur from its name

Updated: 4:47 PM EDT Sep 13, 2021

A Lake Tahoe area ski resort has changed its name, removing derogatory language from the 70-year-old resort's name.Formerly Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows, the resort has been renamed Palisades Tahoe, according to a social media post. The original name had a word with English roots that is considered a racial and sexual slur against Native American women."For more than a year, our community has been waiting, wondering and guessing what the new name for our mountains would be. Today marks the first day of the next chapter of our resort’s storied history. From our founding in 1949 and hosting the 1960 Winter Olympics, to the freeskiing pioneers and Olympians that put us on the map, the last seven decades have cemented our mountains’ place in the halls of ski history. While the name may be new, the legend and legacy of these valleys continue on, now as Palisades Tahoe," the resort's post goes on to say.Plans to change the resort's name had been in the works since August 2020. The move comes amid growing efforts nationwide to remove symbols of Indigenous oppression from public spaces.