Man, 50, dead and woman, 58, fought for their lives after their gondola was hit by a construction drill and both suffered a ‘brutal fall’ as police refuse to drop criminal charges
- A man was killed and a woman critically injured after the gondola they were riding in at a mountain resort was struck by a construction drill.
- The couple suffered a “brutal fall”, a police spokesman said while refusing to rule out criminal charges related to the incident.
- Following Sunday’s tragedy, a music festival at the resort was canceled and flags were flown at half mast.
One person was killed and another seriously injured when they were thrown from a tourist gondola on Sunday in a freak incident at the popular Mont-Tremblant resort, authorities said.
Quebec provincial police said the accident occurred shortly before noon when a drilling machine from a nearby construction site struck the gondola at the mountain resort about 65 miles northwest of Montreal.
Police said in an email that the other passenger was taken to a Montreal-area hospital with life-threatening injuries. A police spokesman described the impact as “very brutal”.
Investigators from the Major Crimes Division were dispatched to the scene. Criminal negligence charges have not been ruled out, reports CBC.
The deceased man was identified as 50-year-old Sheldon Johnson. The woman was identified as Marichu Gadong-Gleyo, 58.
A man was killed and a woman critically injured after the gondola they were riding in at a mountain resort was struck by a construction drill.
The couple suffered a “brutal fall”, a police spokesman said while refusing to rule out criminal charges related to the incident.
The rig operator was looking to move it on Sunday before work on Monday to save time. He has been described as a 30-year-old subcontractor.
Following Sunday’s tragedy, a music festival at the resort was canceled and flags were flown at half mast.
Another police spokeswoman, Audrey-Anne Bilodeau, told CTV Montreal that the drill operator was “in shock after this.”
The rig is also being inspected to determine if there was any type of mechanical failure. The machine actually hit two gondolas, the other one was empty.
The Tremblant Resort Association declined to comment on the accident, but said in a Facebook post that activities on the mountain were suspended after the accident.
It was pretty bad. The gondola that was hit, there’s a part of the gondola that was torn off and people didn’t stand a chance, they just fell to the ground several meters, hitting the ground hard,” Éric Cadotte, a spokesman for Sûreté du Québec, told CBC. .
Cadotte went on to call the impact “very brutal”.
The rig operator was looking to move it on Sunday before work on Monday to save time. He has been described as a 30-year-old subcontractor, reports CBC.
Both victims were from Ontario. As of this writing, Gadong-Gleyo is still fighting for his life at a local hospital.
Another police spokeswoman, Audrey-Anne Bilodeau, said CTV Montreal that the drill operator was “in shock after this.” Bilodeau said Monday that investigators are still in the process of questioning witnesses.
A map showing the distance traveled by the gondolas from the top of the mountain to the resort
The rig is also being inspected to determine if there was any type of mechanical failure. The machine actually hit two gondolas, the other one was empty.
The spokesman said the drill was ‘not necessarily meant to work in the mountains, especially when (the gondolas) were in operation. … It seems that an employee would have tried to move the machinery … and, unfortunately, it was at that moment that there was an impact with the gondola.’
The officer said she did not know what the relationship was between the man and the woman.
Flags at the complex were flown at half mast Sunday night and into Monday as a sign of respect.
‘It’s hard. It is a very difficult time for us. It’s hard on all the staff and we really are with family. “People are trying to understand (what happened). So are we and the investigation will help us with that,” resort spokeswoman Annick Aird told CTV.
