A professional slackliner was in the right place at the right time when he used his climbing skills to save a fellow skier's life.
Mickey Wilson is an adventure athlete from Golden, Colo.
On Wednesday, he was skiing at Arapahoe Basin Ski Area in Colorado's Rocky Mountains when a friend of a friend's backpack got tangled in the chair — knocking him out and leaving him dangling below the chair by his neck.
Watch Mickey Wilson's interview. Article continues below.
“He was already unconscious and had stopped battling to be free. He was hanging lifelessly. And then we start to go up to him and the enormity of the situation hadn’t hit yet, but then one of my friends started yelling, ‘He’s choking; he’s choking; he’s choking!’" Wilson said in an interview with Denver 7 ABC.
Wilson told the Denver Post that he and his friends first tried to make a human pyramid to reach their friend, but when it kept falling he came up with another idea.
“That’s when I realized — it all kind of snapped together — that ‘I can climb this tower and get to him,’” Wilson said.
It took a few minutes for Wilson to reach his unconscious friend, just in time for a ski patrolman to arrive.
The patrolman threw a knife up to Wilson, who cut his friend loose, allowing him to fall into the snow where the patrolman could begin CPR.
CBS Denver reported that the man was treated for broken ribs, and released from the hospital on Thursday.
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