A born-and-raised Coloradan died after falling from a chairlift. His mom wants a state law requiring restraint bar use

A mother whose adult son died after a fall from a chairlift at Keystone Resort this past ski season is calling for a change in the culture — and the law — surrounding the use of the restraint bar in Colorado.

Donovan Romero, 32, died on May 2 from injuries he sustained about five months earlier in a fall from the chairlift. Tonette Romero, his mother, said her son would still be alive today if he had lowered the restraint bar.

“It’s been a rough, rough road,” Tonette said in a phone interview as she drove to pick up her son’s death certificate. She described Donovan — who leaves behind two daughters, ages 8 and 11 — as an “extremely funny” and loving father.

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“He was always the one laughing and telling jokes, but he also had this really sensitive side to him,” Tonette said. “He was really hard on himself and pushed himself to be better. He was very success driven. He had girls (at a young age), two daughters, and he wanted to build a good life for them.”

Donovan fell 47 feet from the Ruby Express chairlift on Dec. 11, according to the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board, which investigates any chairlift-related deaths or injuries in the state.

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“Skier error,” not a lift malfunction, led to the fall, according to the report issued by the Safety Board. Donovan, who had been wearing a helmet, hung onto the armrest momentarily before the fall, the report states. The restraint bar was not lowered.

A helicopter airlifted him from the ski resort to the hospital, according to previous reporting by the Summit Daily. He died of the injuries he sustained in the fall five months later while in home hospice surrounded by family.

Nadia Guerriero, Vail Resorts’ chief operating operator for the Rockies Region, said in a statement that the company is “fully committed to upholding the highest standards of safety.” Vail Resorts “pro-actively” invests in safety measures such as the Yellow Jackets safety program, signage in slow zones, and its Kids on Lifts safety program, Guerriero said.

“We send our deepest sympathy and support to the loved ones of Mr. Romero. There is no higher priority to us than the safety of our guests and employees,” she added.

She said that all Vail Resorts’ ski areas “encourage guests at multiple touch points to ski in control and within their abilities, ride lifts with the bar down and follow the Skier Responsibility Code.”

One of the key elements of Your Responsibility Code, sometimes referred to as the Skier Responsibility Code, is that skiers and riders “must know how and be able to load, ride, and unload chairlifts safely.” The code, which is a set of 10 safety guidelines, was developed by the National Ski Area Association and has been adopted by most ski areas in the U.S.

But Tonette said that ski resorts should do more to inform customers about the risks of riding on chairlifts, including the potentially fatal consequences of falls. While she acknowledged that chairlift falls are rare compared to the number of riders, she said that simply lowering the safety bar can save lives — so why not require it?

“Ultimately, I want to see Colorado pass legislation that requires that bar to come down,” she said.

In Colorado, ‘the norm is you don’t put the bar down’

While most European countries require the use of the restraint bar on chairlifts, few states in the U.S. require its usage.

Colorado does not.

In Europe, it’s common practice, and often required, that ski resort customers lower the chairlift restraint bar. In Austria, some ski resorts reportedly have chairlifts equipped with flashing lights and alarms that go off when a customer doesn’t lower the bar.

One study of restraint bar usage in the U.S. found the culture around using the bar differs by region. While the restraint bar was used only about 40% of the time in the Rocky Mountain Region — which includes Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico — it was used more than 80% of the time in the Northeast, according to the study. The Pacific Southwest used the bar only 18% of the time, while the Midwest used it 10% of the time, the study found.

“That goes to show that it’s the norm. The norm is you don’t put the bar down because you don’t think anything is ever going to happen,” Tonette said. “But it can happen. It does happen.”

Most states have adopted the chairlift safety recommendations published by the American National Standards Institute which are known as B77 safety standards. Since 2018, the B77 safety standards have required all newly-built chairlifts or relocated chairlifts to have restraint bars installed — but the standards do not require customers to lower the bar.

Like most other states with skiing, Colorado — which hosts about one-quarter of all skier visits in the U.S. each year — has adopted the latest B77 safety standards. Most ski resorts also leave the decision about whether to lower the bar up to visitors.

“If the ski resort doesn’t think the risk is enough to require you to use the safety bar, why would I think the risk is enough to use the safety bar?” Tonette said. “If the behavior of everybody else is to not use the safety bar.”

Vermont’s take on the restraint bar

Vermont is one of the few states with regulations requiring customers to use the restraint bar.

For decades, the state’s regulations have included an addendum to the B77 safety standards requiring the use of the restraint bar, Vermont Department of Labor Director of Workers’ Safety Dirk Anderson said in an email. Anderson said the required use of the restraint bar has been part of Vermont’s regulations since at least 1982, but likely longer.

Prior to each season, lift inspectors ensure that all chairlifts in Vermont have prominent signage exiting the loading area that reads, “Lower Bar,” he said. During the ski season, the rule is mostly self-enforced by the ski areas, with lift operators sometimes verbally reminding guests to lower the bar, he said.

“Lift safety is paramount, especially in a state like Vermont, where ski areas drive tourism revenue,” he said. “It just seems like common sense that a person suspended 10, 20, or 30 feet above the ground would use the safety bar to prevent a potential fall.”

Michael Reitzell, the president and chief operating officer of the National Ski Areas Association, said in a statement that ski lift falls are rare but that the trade association supports customers using the restraint bar.

“Increasing the use of restraint bars is going to take a cultural shift, and that starts with awareness,” Reitzell said. “This kind of change takes consistent education and strong support across the industry. Incidents are rare, and we want to keep them rare, which is why our education on this topic never stops.”

He compared using the restraint bar on a chairlift to skiers and riders wearing helmets, which has drastically increased over the past few decades, in part due to concerted educational campaigns at ski resorts.

“Nearly everyone wears a helmet now, but we continue to educate about its importance,” he said. “Chairlift safety is no different.”

Donovan Romero, father of 2, was “an adventurer but not a risk taker”

Donovan grew up in Littleton, where he attended Cherry Hill Village Elementary School and ThunderRidge High School. He played competitive sports growing up, and like many Coloradans, he loved spending time outdoors, camping, hunting, and fishing, his mother said. 

For about a year, he served in the Army National Guard before being honorably discharged around the time of the birth of his first daughter, his mother said.

“From that point on, he just did everything he could to provide for his kids,” Tonette said.

“He loved being a dad. It was his greatest joy,” she said. “Everything he did, he did with his daughters in mind. He wanted to build a good life for them and provide for them in a way that would not just be sufficient but above and beyond.”

While working a full-time job and raising his daughters, Donovan had recently earned an associate’s degree in computer information systems — something his mother said he was particularly proud of. He had a poodle-terrier mix named Penelope who he would take everywhere with him and a close-knit group of friends who would often turn to him for advice, she said.

Donovan learned to snowboard in high school, but he had just picked up the sport again this past season since having his daughters, Tonette said. He bought an Epic Pass and had been out riding a handful of times before his fall, she said.

Tonette said that if her son — who was “an adventurer but not a risk taker” — could die from a lift fall, it could happen to anyone. She said she’s been disheartened to see people making false assumptions that her son was impaired, inexperienced, or messing around when he fell. 

“For people talking about him, making assumptions that he was doing something that he shouldn’t have been doing — that is really irresponsible to make those assumptions,” Tonette said. “That’s just not who Donovan was.”

Tonette said that her son’s only mistake was to make the “uneducated decision” not to lower the restraint bar. She said Donovan “obsessively researched the right kind of equipment” and always wore a helmet, even though some of his friends didn’t because he “had to get home to his children at the end of the night.”

While the Tramway Safety Board report states that a witness saw Donovan reach down to adjust his snowboard binding, Tonette disputed that, saying that Donovan’s friend, who was on the lift next to him, said that didn’t happen. Whatever happened, it occurred in a split second, she said.

“We don’t know what happened,” Tonette said. “Donovan’s phone was found in his clothing when they cut it off his body. So, he wasn’t on his phone. He wasn’t intoxicated. There were no illegal substances in his system. His friend confirmed he didn’t mess with his bindings. He wasn’t doing anything that would have been considered reckless or out of the ordinary.”

While rare, lift falls can be consequential

While the ski industry calls aerial ropeways, like chairlifts and gondolas, one of the safest methods of transportation in the U.S., chairlift falls occur every year, leading to injuries and, sometimes, fatalities.

Skiers and snowboarders are injured in falls from chair lifts every year in Colorado, with the vast majority of the falls being caused by user error, rather than mechanical malfunction, according to the state’s tramway safety board.

Nationwide data show that over the past 10 years, there has been an average of 0.8 fatal incidents per year compared to the estimated 450 million passengers transported on chairlifts and gondolas annually, according to the National Ski Areas Association.

National Ski Areas Association data from ski area ropeway systems show an incident rate of one fatality per every 570 million lift rides — or less than one fatality for approximately every half billion chairlift rides. Meanwhile, fatalities related to mechanical failures on chairlifts are even rarer, with one fatality for approximately every 1.5 billion lift rides.

In Colorado, the only known falls related to a lift malfunction within the last 39 years occurred at Ski Granby Ranch in 2016, when a woman died after a fall caused by issues with the chairlift’s electrical drive and control system, according to the Colorado Tramway Safety Board.

Colorado has recorded an average of about 14 people being injured in lift falls each season since the 2019-20 winter season, data from the safety board shows. In that same five-season period, the board has recorded two fatal lift falls. But a spokesperson for the safety board said that fatality data does not include Donovan’s death because it occurred after the board’s investigation into whether his fall was caused by a lift malfunction.

Tonette said there should be better information about the risks of chairlift falls. The available data does little to inform customers about how frequently people sustain injuries in lift falls, she said, and it doesn’t account for people who, like her son, die of their injuries weeks or months after the initial fall.

Even though chairlift falls are rare, the consequences can be devastating, she said, reflecting on the impact her son’s death has had on his family, coworkers, and friend group.

Like most skiers and snowboarders, she said it likely never crossed her son’s mind that “If I don’t put this bar down and I fall 50 feet, I’m going to die.” Requiring the restraint bar to be lowered could solve that problem, saving lives, she said.

“There needs to be some sort of campaign. I’m willing to lead that campaign,” Tonette said. “There is always an opportunity to change something to make it better — to make it safer. The only way you can mitigate risk is to remove the risk.”