New Mexico search and rescue crews utilized ropes and helicopters Saturday to safeguard 21 individuals who were stranded overnight in two tram cars after an iced-over cable caused the cars to get stuck high up in the Sandia Mountains overlooking Albuquerque.
Lt. Robert Arguellas a Bernalillo County Fire Department spokesperson, said early Saturday evening that crews first rescued 20 people abandoned in one car and a few hours after the fact protected a 21st person abandoned without help from anyone else in a subsequent car.
Every one individuals on the two cars were employees of the Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway or a mountaintop restaurant, and the 20 out of one vehicle were being carried down to the foundation of the mountains toward the finish of their workdays, Arguellas said.
The other employee had been going up the mountain to give for the time being security when the tram system shut down Friday night because of icing, Arguellas said.
There were no revealed injuries among those abandoned, Arguellas said. “More just pretty frustrated.”
To safeguard the 20 people in the one car, operators had the option to move it to a close by help tower more than mostly up the mountain, and search and rescue personnel early Saturday morning hiked to the area and climbed the tower to deliver blankets and other supplies to those inside the heated car, Arguellas said.
Search and rescue personnel more than a few hours utilized ropes and other hardware to bring down the abandoned employees around 85 feet (26 meters) to the ground prior to accompanying them to a close by landing zone in the precarious and rough landscape where the tower was found, Arguellas said.
The 20 people were then carried by helicopter a few all at once to the base of the mountains, he said.
Arguellas said the second vehicle with the one representative on board was higher up the mountain and at place where the vehicle was too high over the ground to bring down individuals by ropes.
In any case, the tram system had the option to inch the subsequent vehicle down the link to the salvage site at the help pinnacle, and heros then, at that point, utilized ropes to bring down the 21st individual as was done with the others, Arguellas said.
Brian Coon, a tramway system manager, said there was an abnormally quick gathering of ice on one of the links that made it hang beneath the cable car, making it risky to continue onward, report.