21 Restaurant Employees Rescued After Being Stuck for 12 Hours in Freezing Cable Cars 85-Feet in the Air in New Mexico on New Year’s Day

After being stuck on the frozen cable car for hours, the workers were finally rappelled to safety 85feet below, one by one

Restaurant workers who had finished their New Years Eve night shift at a mountaintop restaurant in New Mexico, were forced to spend their first night of 2022 huddled together in a cable car after it became stuck in the middle of the night as it was transporting them back down the 10,300ft mountain.

Guests had all left the TEN 3 restaurant high up in Sandia Mountains in the early hours of Saturday morning leaving just 20 workers to be ferried back down to the ground to return to their homes.

But just as they began their 15 minutes descent, the wintry conditions worsened forcing the aeriel tramway to come to a halt.

People trapped on stuck tram bundle up with help of metallic blankets as they await rescue having spent the night on board.

A rescue helicopter works to help passengers who were stuck overnight on a Sandia Peak Tramway on Saturday

People trapped on stuck tram bundle up with help of metallic blankets as they await rescue having spent the night on board

1.) Two cable cars become stuck at 2am after icy conditions force tramway to be halted 2.) 20 restaurant workers are stuck on one car with 1 security guard stranded on the other 3.) Supplies and blankets are delivered up the mountain by hikers at 8am on Saturday morning 4.) Those stranded are rappelled 85feet down to ground from the cable cars on Saturday afternoon 5.) All 21 are finally rescued by helicopter late on Saturday afternoon

Stranded, and with no realistic way to get down to the ground 85 feet beneath them, the workers were forced to wait until daylight before a daring rescue attempt could be made.

At first light on Saturday, New Mexico search and rescue crews used ropes and helicopter to rescue all 21 people who had become stranded in the two tram cars after an iced-over cable caused the cars to become completely stuck.

Lt. Robert Arguellas a Bernalillo County Fire Department spokesman, said early on Saturday afternoon that crews first managed to rescued 20 people stranded in one car and several hours later rescued a 21st person who was stranded by themselves in a second car.

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SOURCE: Daily Mail, James Gordon