8-Year-Old Girl Who Fell From Park City, UT Chairlift Saved by Her Helmet

The helmet 8-year-old Saylor Reeve was wearing when she fell over 30-feet from a chairlift at Park City, UT on Saturday prevented her from receiving even more serious injuries, or potentially worse.

Saylor is an experienced skier, she has been skiing hundreds of times, but a medical condition caused her to fall off the lift. Saylor Reeve’s recently started having seizures and that’s what her parents say happened while she was on the ski lift.

“Horrific is not even a strong enough word to describe it,” Cydney Reeve, Saylor’s mother, told Fox13.

GoPro footage from a passing skier shows a little girl lying lifeless on the hard-packed snow and the subsequent rescue operation by ski patrol.

“She wasn’t moving at all,” said Brian Bosworth who watched her fall. And at first, skiers say she wasn’t breathing.

In what must be a parent’s worst nightmare, Saylor’s mother watched helplessly from the lift above, not able to get to her daughter.

“We’re so grateful people responded to my screaming my frantic screaming to help her,” Cydney said. “That’s all we could do is ask for help.”

A close-up picture of Saylor’s helmet shows her skis dented the shell and made a major compression in the foam layer.

“If she had not had a helmet on this would have been a completely different story,” Cydney said.

Saylor is still in the hospital with a long list of injuries including a compression fracture in her spine, is expected to make a full recovery, and will hopefully be able to go home soon.