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Dozens of grade school students were left stranded on a lift at Ski Vorlage, outside Wakefield, on Tuesday night as temperatures plunged below -20.

The students were from Ottawa-area schools including Kars on the Rideau Public School, St. Leonard Catholic School and St. Philip School. The students, who are enrolled in grades 4 through 8, were taking part in a ski club program operated by Snowhawks Ski & Snowboard School.

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Snowhawks director Harvey Brodkin said that at least 20 kids became stuck on the lift shortly after 7 p.m. when equipment pulling the chairs up the hill malfunctioned. Crews went to work trying to fix the gear but soon decided to perform an emergency evacuation when it became apparent that repairing the ski lift would take longer than anticipated and temperatures were dropping rapidly. The last chair on the lift was evacuated just after 9 p.m.

Ottawa Public Health released a frostbite advisory for Tuesday night as temperatures hit a low of -24. With the windchill, temperatures felt like -29.

Two teams of rescuers were deployed, according to Dave Saunders, president and general manager of Ski Vorlage. Children who were on chairs closest to the ground were rescued using a forklift-like device that had a bucket. The children climbed into the bucket and were lowered. Other children were lowered by rope.

“There was a chairlift evacuation that had to take place,” said Saunders. “It does happen unfortunately. It’s something that customers don’t want to see happen. It happens very rarely. After we had them lowered to the ground we had them checked … we had ski patrol check them out and brought them into the chalet.”

Saunders said the cause of the mechanical failure was diagnosed by technicians early on Wednesday morning and that the lift would be operational by the end of the day.

Brodkin said he received no reports of any injuries but was reaching out to parents of children who needed to be rescued.

“We’ve obviously had people frightened and scared,” he said.

Brodkin said his ski club was sending emails to parents while the rescue was proceeding to keep them informed. A message was sent through the Snowhawks’ Twitter account around 7:45 p.m. telling parents that buses would be late Tuesday night and encouraging parents to check their email boxes.