SANDY RIVER PLANTATION — A 6-year-old boy was uninjured Friday after he he slid out of a chairlift at Saddleback Mountain and fell about 15 feet to a trail below, according to Douglas “Doc” Tulin, director of marketing.

The boy was riding the South Branch Quad about 3 p.m. with his parents.

“While approaching the unload zone with the safety bar raised, the child slid out of the chair falling approximately 15 feet, landing on the ski trail and the child did not suffer any injuries,” according to Tulin’s statement. “We are required to inform the state in any accident resulting from a malfunction of the lift. This incident was not the result of a malfunction and was the result of an over-eager 6-year-old, but we did inform the state,” he wrote.

The boy was with at least one other person and they were preparing to get off and had raised the bar, he said.

The lift services the beginner terrain below the base lodge.

It is the second fall from a chairlift at a ski area in Franklin County since Feb. 10 when an 8-year-old girl fell between 20 and 25 feet from a lift at Sugarloaf in Carrabassett Valley.  A catch net was deployed beneath the chair to try and break her fall. The girl was taken to a Bangor hospital after complaining of back pain and because she had a preexisting medical condition. The girl was released from a hospital and was doing well, the child’s mother told a Sun Journal reporter last week.

Saddleback Mountain, which is near Rangeley, was closed for about five years and reopened under new ownership in December.

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