Almost home, she thought as she felt the tramway system, which
shuttles people to the restaurant 10,300 feet above sea level, start to move.
Twenty people were in one car, and one person was in another — 19
employees of Ten 3 and two employees of the tramway system — who were headed
home to celebrate 2024.
Then, near the second tower of the tramway, the cars stopped.
At 10 pm, nothing.
At 11 pm, still no movement.
“Something’s not right,” Santos recalled telling her colleagues.
Finally, the countdown until 2024 had, for those stranded, become
a countdown until their rescue.
It would take more than 12 hours.
As temperatures dipped into the mid-20s, the passengers resorted
to rationing Life Savers gummies and six bottles of water as they spent the
first few hours of 2024 waiting for rescue crews to arrive.
By Saturday afternoon, all of the stranded passengers had been
rescued. No one was injured, officials said.
Spencer Moreland, an incident commander for New Mexico Search and
Rescue, which provided about 30 volunteers who helped with the rescue, got a
call from the New Mexico State Police at 3 am He was on the scene by 4 am, and
an hour later, rescuers had begun the more than four-hour hike up the steep
terrain in a snowstorm.
Rescuers had to get to a tower, climb to the tram and set up a
rope system to lower people to safety, he said. From there, they hiked with the
passengers about 100 yards to a landing site where a helicopter whisked them
away a few at a time.
Rescuers battled treacherous conditions, said Larry Koren, the
pilot who flew the stranded to safety by landing his helicopter on a narrow
ridge.
Koren, who is also the undersheriff for the Bernalillo County
Sheriff’s Office, said members of the sheriff’s office, along with other local
officials, had trained with the tramway operator for just such a situation.
Such a rescue was one that they had considered but never executed,
he said, adding, “And we never expected it would be for 21 people in a
snowstorm.”
Michael Donovan, general manager of Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway,
said that wind and ice had caused an emergency cable to cross over another
cable, preventing the tram cars from reaching their destination.
He said rescuers were lucky that visibility had improved, allowing
for a helicopter rescue. Otherwise, the stranded crew members might have had to
hike to safety, a trek they were not equipped for.
“Some of the cooks had Crocs on,” he said.
At first, being trapped in a tram car for New Year’s Eve had been
welcomed as a funny, yet dangerous, adventure, Santos said. Her Instagram
videos show her and the others yelling “Happy New Year!” at midnight.
But then the temperature began to drop. At 12:57 am, it was 35
degrees. The passengers retrieved emergency blankets stored in the car and
broke out hard pretzels and Life Savers gummies from their backpacks.
“Everyone’s quiet,” said Santos, 31. “It’s dark. It’s freezing.
We’re literally freezing or shivering because the small safety blankets don’t
retain any heat.”
She added, “You just start thinking, ‘Is this how I’m going to
die, in a tiny box with my co-workers?’”
The wind swayed the car like a playground swing. At 3:49 am, they
were bunched together, mostly silent, but still supportive of one another,
Santos said. It was 24 degrees, and she continued to shiver, unable to sleep.
She tried to think positive thoughts: At least the car had a
built-in toilet. And at least they could communicate with the tramway system
workers through a speaker on the car. The workers told them help was on the
way. But by 4 am, she believed she was going to die, she said.
“You just felt hopeless,” Santos said. “You’re cold. You’re sad.
You just want to be at home on New Year’s with your friends, doing what other
people do.”
When rescue crews finally arrived, she immediately reached for a
blanket and a water bottle. After rappelling to the ground, which she said was
“actually very exciting,” she got on the helicopter, was checked by medical
workers and then walked to her car.
She opened up Instagram one more time and recorded a message.
“I literally have no words for today,” she said. “I’m literally
out of words. This has been horrible.”
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