Skier Suffocates In Bizarre Chairlift Accident At Colorado Resort | TODAY

This morning, visitors to the scenic ski

resort

of Vail, Colorado, are on alert after authorities say a New Jersey man suffocated while trying to load a

chairlift

, the coroner told the Vail newspaper. Jason Barniz, 46, slid through a gap in his seat Thursday and was left hanging. from the chair after becoming entangled in his coat, the coroner says the coat ended up around his head and neck, putting his neck in a position that compromised his airway. The mountain's Ski Patrol performed emergency CPR on the mountain before transporting the varnish to a nearby hospital. where he later died,

resort

officials told NBC News they are conducting a full investigation and added that the elevator has been thoroughly inspected and is operating normally.

It's horrible, I'm still not sure exactly how it happened, but it's a tragedy. This is not the first time a passenger has been suspended on a

chairlift

. At the complex in 2009, a 48-year-old man was suspended face down in the same elevator for seven minutes before being rescued without injury. Last year, an eight-year-old boy was seen hanging from a chairlift at the Grouse Mountain ski resort in Vancouver, an incredibly group. A group of quick-thinking teens created a makeshift crash pad to catch the boy Also this weekend on another mountain near Vail, an avalanche killed two Colorado men riding snowmobiles in the backcountry Sunday That night, rescue teams and volunteers recovered the bodies of the men who were buried under the snow. and the ice rose to where they were and we began to search with our beacons probing everywhere.

Officials are still investigating, but say the avalanche may have been triggered by the group's snowmobiles. More and more people are coming up and enjoying the countryside, but there's a lot of risk associated with that, it was just terrible storage on so many levels, any indication at this point of how the guy fell through his chair, well, it's not there. Still of course, but we know that the seats installed on that chairlift fold up if no one is there. Sitting on them, the county coroner told Vail Daily that witnesses reported seeing the seat upright leaving an open area one could fall through, of course, all of this will surely be part of the investigation.