LYME, N.H. (AP) – Skiers and parents say the injuries suffered earlier this month by a 12-year-old boy who fell from a chair lift after raising the safety bar too soon served as a wake-up call.

“We’ve got to pay a little more attention to whatever we do in life,” Dartmouth Skiway Director Doug Holler said, “whether it’s crossing the street, driving a car, or riding a chairlift.”

Harry Voelkel, of Norwich, Vt. fell more than 30 feet, breaking both wrists, a thigh and collapsing a lung after falling from a lift at the Dartmouth Skiway on Feb. 8.

A preliminary report by the New Hampshire Department of Safety’s Tramway Bureau says that Voelkel had lifted the safety bar about 175 feet before the offload ramp when the lift stopped.

Voelkel spent six days in the hospital and is expected to recuperate for at least four to six weeks before resuming classes at Richmond Middle School in Hanover.

Ski areas in Vermont post signs noting that use of the safety bar is required by law. But there’s no law in New Hampshire requiring skiers and snowboarders to use the devices.

Karen and Hal Manning, of Hanover, say they laid down their own law to their son the day after Voelkel fell from the lift.

“We read him the riot act,” Karen Manning said Friday, while picking up 11-year-old Ben from a ski camp at Whaleback Mountain in Enfield. “When we heard about it, it scared the daylights out of us.”

Friday at Whaleback, with the chairlifts rocking in a strong northerly wind, about half of the riders on the lift at mid-afternoon appeared to be using the safety bars.

But skiers who knew about Voelkel’s accident were among the more cautious ones.

“Some of my friends used to put the bar up a lot sooner,” said Beau Marshall,an eighth grader at Lyme Elementary School. “Now, they’re leaving it down a little longer.”

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Information from: Lebanon Valley News, http://www.vnews.com

AP-ES-02-25-06 1059EST