I was somewhere in Europe and I had met a man (probably in his late 40s) operating a ski lift. I could see the cable of the lift stretching to the top of a high mountain. It seemed that the man was competent and knew what he was doing, so I had decided to ride the lift to the top of the mountain. I boarded one of the small cable cars, he boarded the one in front of me and we took off.

We had barely started when the car made a quick jerk forward and I slipped back from my seat. All I had to hold on to was a loose bar across my lap which was not securely holding me in. Since the car had no top on it, I was completely exposed to the outside and in danger of falling out. The ascent seemed to become almost vertical and I was indeed worried that I was going to tumble out. I couldn't seem to find anything to hold on to tightly.

I knew we were already extremely high and that if I fell I would surely die. I was afraid to look down, because I thought that would make me even more nervous and perhaps cause me to lose my balance and lose what little hold I had. Instead I looked straight up into the blue sky. But that also made me nervous and finally I simply held my eyes shut.

We traveled on and on and finally we stopped. I could hardly believe it, but we had reached the top. I was quite upset with the man, but I didn't say anything to him. I was wondering how I was going to get back down to the bottom of the mountain since I certainly didn't want to ride in the ski lift again.

When I got off the ski lift, I found myself in a large building which was apparently a hotel or ski lodge. It was quite crowded with people. I quickly met a fellow with a black beard who had a woman with him. We began talking in German and I told him about the harrowing experience I had just lived through. I couldn't think of the German word for "seat belt" and so I just said it in English. He soon began speaking English with me and he seemed to speak it perfectly.

He explained that all over Europe the same problem existed with the ski lifts. In fact he told me that virtually every mountain in Europe was served by ski lifts, and that many were unsafe. The woman told me that people often fell out from them, but they do not always die, because they sometimes fell into snow banks on the mountains. I was quite appalled that such unsafe ski lifts were allowed to operate.