A skier who threw a snowboarder from a chairlift at Aspen Highlands in Colorado has been arrested and charged with felony assault.
In January, Thomas Proesel, a skier who’s spent the last three weeks in a Grand Junction mental hospital according to the Aspen Times, was conversing during the ride up the lift with snowboarder Seth Beckton when he became outraged by what Beckton perceived as an innocuous comment. Proesel then proceeded to throw Beckton off the lift where he fell 20-25 feet into soft powder and was un-injured. Both men are from the Aspen area.
“I honestly thought I was dead,” Beckton said. “Because I didn’t know where we were (within the lift path). It’s not cool to think anyone would do that.”
Proesel appeared in court this week but was taken into custody sometime around January 20th after local police used resort cameras and Proesel’s season pass (it beeped in as he boarded lifts and was logged into resort records) to find him. When he was arrested, Proesel was said to have been talking about people coming after him who were potential terrorists as well as weaving a number of nonsensical anecdotes that fit the profile of mental illness. He voluntarily went into custody and was put on mental health watch and sent to the Grand Junction psychiatric hospital. Because of legalities, police were unable to speak of Proesel’s whereabouts until court proceedings this week.
Proesel was released on $10,000 bond to his father and uncle who were reportedly transferring him to a Tennessee mental hospital.
