Pennsylvania Files Felony Charges Against Parents of 5-Year-Old Who Fell From Chairlift

Are we going to let one chairlift ride ruin a family?

My daughter was 8 years old when she asked me this question: “Dad, how old were you when you were allowed to go outside by yourself?”

I could not answer because I had no answer. I could not remember a time when I was not permitted to play outside unsupervised, I told her. It was small-town Midwest life and it was the ‘80s and all we did all day long was whatever we wanted. I didn’t know where the adults were and they didn’t know where we were and they never asked when we got home.

I’m not sure if this child of Manhattan really understood what I was saying. Anyway, we’re past it. My daughter is 17 now, almost 18, headed to college in the fall. She can do whatever she wants whenever she likes. But I always felt guilty about raising her in New York City, a place that is bacchanalia for adults but a prison for children, who must be ever-shielded from the menaces of traffic and crowds.

Or so we tell ourselves. American parents have, over the past 30 years or so, developed a self-righteous supervision culture that, vested with government authority, mandates compliance. What made me feel simultaneously better and worse was the realization that her circumscribed childhood had less to do with my decision to live in Manhattan than with the fact that she was born in America in 2008, by which time it had become taboo to let children play outside without adult supervision even in the rural and small-town kid-topias I’d rambled in my early years.

The excesses and consequences of this accidental cultural mass movement are well-documented in books such as Free Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy and The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. I read these books like I watch football games, bent in, immersed, cheering for the good guys. “Hell yes!” I say, “we got it all wrong. This must change!” And then I proceed to do absolutely nothing. Well, other than to continue complying with the cultural assumption that children are idiots and hover over them like Predator Drones as they walk 100 yards to the grocery store. Because I don’t know what else to do. Because I don’t want to get my kids taken away and our entire civilization has been reprogrammed as a surveillance state always on alert for unsupervised 7-year-olds and fighting back just feels impossible, like trying to change the weather or rearrange the continents back into Pangea.

But I did find one reprieve from my guilt-as-modern heli-parent: ski areas. Here we have the perfect arena in which to let children roam and explore unsupervised: a confined, well-defined, car-free zone staffed at all times by ski patrol trained in emergency medical services. Ski areas are a recreational version of what urbanist Jane Jacob’s called “eyes on the street” - skiers are constantly in view of other skiers who are skiing, riding lifts, milling about. It would be almost impossible to abduct a child unseen or unheard from such a place.

My daughter, it turned out, had little interest in independent ski roaming. But I started my son, now 9, at skiing much younger, and he was skilled enough, by age 6, to ride the Comet double chair at Mt. Peter with his friends, and lower and raise the safety bar at the appropriate junctures. At first, I would ride the trailing chair, then follow them down the hill, but he quickly progressed to riding up and skiing down without supervision. Context matters, of course. Getting lost at Mt. Peter would be like getting lost in the back seat of your car. Every run takes you back to the same place. And the benefits to his self-awareness, confidence, and self-identity were huge. Repetition flooded him with great confidence, which we could progressively apply at larger ski areas. In January of this year, he skied several late-day runs with his 11-year-old friend at Greek Peak, a sprawling, tricky-to-navigate thousand-footer in Central New York. Last month, he lapped the triple chair at Black Mountain, New Hampshire alone while we hung out in the baselodge. I have limits: when we skied sprawling, hill-and-dale Vail Mountain and Breckenridge in February, he had to stay in my sight at all times.

Oh crap did I just confess to a string of felonies?

On March 1 of this year, 5-year-old Brody Porter boarded a chairlift at Blue Knob, Pennsylvania alone. While adjusting his goggles, he fell 20 feet to the snow. Patrol responded quickly, Brody seemed alert and unharmed, but they called an airlift to Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital as a precautionary measure. He returned home unharmed.

The following week, WTAJ news visited Brody and his family:

It was light work for the news crew: an attractive, put-together family smiling and advocating for helmet use. The parents, Micah and Maya, seemed happy and relieved. The kids are floppy-haired and adorable. Whew, glad that’s over. Let’s make our little pseudo-PSA and get back to planning our next beach trip.

Well, it wasn’t over. On Monday, the State of Pennsylvania filed a second-degree felony count against each parent for endangering the welfare of a child. They released Micah on $50,000 bail and Maya on $30,000. A preliminary hearing is set for May 6 in Bedford Country Central Court.

Court documents provide a vague, somewhat contradictory timeline of the day that contains the following insights: Brody rode the chairlift at least once with his father before, according to a lift attendant, riding alone “three or four times.” Immediately preceding the fall, Brody had been skiing with Maya, who says she asked him to wait for her, which he did not do. He then fell off the Expressway triple chair near the top of the Upper Expressway trail. It took ski area officials 15 minutes to locate his parents. Maya later told police that she did not believe a 5-year-old should be permitted to ride a chairlift unsupervised.

Blue Knob, Pennsylvania. Brody fell from the Expressway triple chairlift.

Like for real?

A second-degree felony in Pennsylvania can carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $25,000, according to multiple online sources.

This feels, um, excessive.

Prison? Because your child fell off a chairlift while riding alone?

That would destroy what appears to be a healthy, functional family. Maya’s Facebook photo archive is 100 percent wholesome, backpacks and beaches, family strolling hands-held across a park lawn, Hershey Park, Big Wheels, the Dickinson Children’s Center Pumpkin Run ‘25, kids packing themselves in suitcases, ultrasounds, Halloween on a loop.

It’s easy to dress up your social media profiles, of course. Behind-closed-doors transgressions have complicated the human character since Adam. Court records show that this is Micah’s second felony charge for child endangerment, following a 2022 DUI charge. Well that doesn’t sound like it was a good decision.

So who knows what else we don’t know about this incident or this family? As dumb as I reflexively think these charges against Porters are, I appreciate that we live in a nation of laws and transparency. Here are a few points that I’m certain of and some I’m attempting to clarify as I unravel this very strange story:

What I know

About this specific incident, not much beyond what I’ve outlined above. Micah, Maya, and their lawyer did not respond to requests for comment. Blue Knob officials declined to comment, citing legal counsel against doing so. I’m awaiting comment from several other parties, including the National Ski Areas Association.

But I know that if the Porter parents are convicted of a felony or even some bargained-down charges and the state rules that they were neglectful in allowing their child to load a chairlift alone, this could be a big, big problem for lift-served skiing in the United States.

How would we even begin to determine who can and cannot ride a chairlift alone? Do we regulate by age? Or the easier-to-quantify height? The most rational approach would seem to be defaulting toward ability level: Brody had been skiing for two years, he told WTAJ. The thing he liked best about it was “going fast.” The state may have had a case had Brody’s parents dropped him at the baselodge and said, “have fun with your first-ever time skiing, Son. See you in six hours.”

There are potential consequences beyond chairlifts here. If a parent is to be responsible for their child’s every decision at a ski area, could they also be charged with a felony if their 5-year-old falls and breaks their leg while skiing a trail? Or gets hit by another skier? Can we send children to the bathroom alone? To the cafeteria?

I did not ski as a child, so I have no first-person reference here, but the greatest joy of skiing with my children has been watching them develop confidence by doing something that is physically hard while navigating a large and often-intimidating network of trails, lifts, and base buildings. The best thing I can do for my children is to prepare them for adulthood, and I’ve found no better vector for these sorts of mini-victories than ski areas.

What I don’t know

Was Brody prepared to ride a chairlift alone?

If you have more than one kid or know more than one kid or have been part of a family unit with more than one kid, you know that proficiency gaps can be stunningly wide even between children drawn from exactly the same gene pool. My son could ride a chairlift alone at 6, but my daughter was closer to 9 before she’d reached that ability level. The first time I rode a chairlift, I was 14 and came off the exit ramp like a giraffe on rollerskates, a human bowling ball, a terror - but I was tall so I guess go ahead, Kid?

Before I let my son ride a chairlift alone, I drilled lowering and raising the safety bar with him. He did it with my help and then alone. Did Brody have that same guidance? Was the safety bar down when he fell? If not, why not? Were his parents the never-bar sort who tell their kids not to use them, or was he just too busy being a 5-year-old to remember?

Was Brody allowed, by his parents, to ride the chairlift alone?

Here, official reports offer contradictory stories. A lift attendant told police that Micah had told them that Brody could ride alone. Maya later told police that she didn’t think a 5-year-old should be able to ride a lift alone. Were the parents just out of sync here? Sometimes skills jumps happen fast. Maybe dad was going to be like “hey Mom, guess who just rode the lift alone!” That’s how my family tends to work.

And if the kid wasn’t allowed to ride alone, did he do so anyway because he’s a rascal and thought it would be funny, or because he’s 5, or both?

Were the Porters violating any laws?

I am not aware of any local, state, or federal laws specifying minimum heights or ages for chairlift riders, nor do I believe that any such stipulations or recommendations exist in the ANSI codes, which govern ski area construction standards in North America. I also don’t believe that Blue Knob has any sort of height or age minimum in place.

Beyond chairlift regulations, are there any state or local laws regarding child supervision in a public space? Is it (legally speaking), neglectful to lose sight of your child? At what point are parents allowed to hand children off to the commons? Does an adult lift operator suffice? Fellow skiers on the trail? Again, this could get complicated for ski areas very quickly.

What I want to know from you

This is a developing story, and my surveys of various Facebook threads this morning only reinforced my belief that social media has transformed primarily into a virtue-signaling platform for trolls and idiots. So I want to hear from a smarter group: my readers, on any of the following:

• At what age did you first ride a chairlift alone? At what age did you first ski alone without adult supervision? When was this, and where?

• At what age did you allow your children to ride a chairlift alone? At what age did you allow them to ski alone without adult supervision? When was this, and where?

• How did you know that you or your children were ready to ride a chairlift alone?

• What role has skiing alone at a young age played in the personal development of you or your children?

• Do you believe that there should be an age or height requirement for individuals to ride a chairlift alone? If so, why?

• Do you believe that ski areas are, in general, safe places for children to explore alone or in small groups? Why or why not?

• I’ve found that many fixed-grip lift operators are incredibly skilled at gauging, just by the manner in which a child enters the loading area, whether they need to slow the lift or not. Some will proactively swing the safety bar down for children. What are some cool things you’ve seen lifties do to help kids? If you were a liftie, what were the tells you look for when you assess a kid entering the queue alone?

• If you’ve been a liftie, did your ski area provide any advice or guidance on how to determine who could safely load and ride a lift by themselves?

• If you’re a ski area operator, what sort of guidance, if any, do you provide your employees around loading children onto chairlifts without adults?

Please reply to this email or send a note to skiing@substack.com with your answers. The Substack Messenger app is hard to copy and paste from. I may use some or portions of your responses in a future newsletter. If you would like your answer to be anonymous, please indicate that when emailing, as I may not be able to follow up directly with everyone.

More to come on this story.