Shawn L. Durrant helped to save Angela C. Bailey from falling, Liberty, Utah, January 29, 1990. Angela, 5, dangled from the grasp of her mother, who was seated in a ski-lift chair that was suspended about 30 feet from the ground, the surface of which was of hard-packed snow. Unable to lift Angela into the chair, the mother screamed for help. One of the lift’s operators, Durrant, 18, trade school student, instructed the other operator to advance the chair to the nearest support tower. Durrant then scaled the 40-foot tower and walked atop its narrow, unprotected cross beam to the point at which the lift’s cable was secured. As the figuring chair was then suspended from the cable a few feet from the tower and the cable itself was just beyond Durrant’s reach, he crouched and leapt from the beam to grasp the cable. Then hanging from the cable, Durrant moved hand-over- hand to the chair connection, wrapped his legs around it, and eased himself into the chair beside Angela’s mother. He then reached down, grasped Angela, and, together with Angela’s mother, pulled her into the seat. The lift was re-started, and they rode, uninjured, to safety.
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