Midwood Mom Olga Filkin Dead After Fatal Plunge From Hunter Mountain Chair Lift

Neighbor Olga Filkin, of Midwood, died on Sunday after falling more than 20 feet from a chair lift at Hunter Mountain Ski Resort, authorities announced yesterday.

Filkin, 44, a wife and mother of two, fell from the ski lift at approximately 2pm Sunday in what has been declared by investigators as an accident.

Filkin was riding alone in the lift when she suddenly fell. The restraining bar was in place, and investigators told the New York Times that they believe one of Filkin’s skis snagged onto a support pole holding the lift’s cables, dragging her from the chair.

Emergency responders attempted to help Filkin, but she was pronounced dead at the scene, reports the Times Union.

“This is a terrible tragedy. We can only imagine what the family is going through, and we stand ready to assist them in any way that we can,” the resort’s president, Russ Coloton, told reporters in a statement.

Filkin was a regular at the Catskills resort, approximately a two hour drive outside of New York City.

CBS2 reports that Filkin is survived by her husband and two children, a young son and a daughter who is on Cornell University’s ski team.

“The family is sports family. They have very big knowledge for this. They have experience for skiing,” a family friend told the outlet.

A spokesperson for the resort told the Times that there were no other known deaths from ski lift falls at Hunter or anywhere in New York.