Posted on 01/27/2024 10:35:25 AM PST by thecodont
This article originally appeared on KCRA.com.
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — When Monica Laso planned a skiing trip with her friends to Heavenly Ski Resort, she never imagined she would spend 15 hours overnight hanging in the sky on a gondola.
The hours felt long as Laso said she was fighting the cold by rubbing her hands and feet.
Thursday was her first time at the Lake Tahoe area resort. She spent most of the day snowboarding. Towards the end of the day, she fell behind her friends since they are more experienced than her.
Laso said since it was getting late, she approached a worker who guided her to the gondola after she expressed that she was too tired to continue down the hill. She got into the gondola at around 4:58 p.m., and then two minutes later, it stopped, leaving her alone and stranded.
KCRA 3 interviewed Laso in Spanish. The following quotes were translated.
"I didn't have a phone, a light or anything," said Laso.
Without a phone to call for help, Laso said she screamed every time she saw a worker down below, but they couldn’t hear her.
"I screamed desperately until I lost my voice," Laso said.
Laso's friends said they reported her missing to the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office when they could not get ahold of her.
It wasn’t until the gondola started working again Friday and went back down the mountain that crews realized she had been there overnight.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Not a single luxury.....
...I can HOWEVER, afford to go skiing.
I'll bet that's policy.
But it takes a long time and the workers had places to be and things to do.
The American work ethic has gone in the toilet. Whether it's ski-lift operators or Boeing employees, nobody cares anymore.
“She should have thrown a ski pole at them.”
Snowboarder.
Yeah, by forcing the boss who hired the idiots to ride the last loop. The boss hired the idiot, let the boss spend the night trapped in a box in the cold.
Heavenly is notorious for having A LOT of traverses. It’s work, especially on a snowboard. Also, at Whistler-Blackcomb on skis with full mile vertical I remember being dang near too tired to ski down at end of long day.
OK, i don’t know from snowboards but i’ve been damn tired skiing and there always seemed to be greentrail somewhere to glide down...
See, another reason why snowboarding is dangerous ;-)
I saw that movie.
We were at Steamboat, I am a blue diamond at best. I missed a sign and ended up on a double black. Fell 15 feet into the run, took my skis off and went down on my rear for about thirty minutes. Best decision I ever made
OSHA drawing up requirement for a phone in every gondola and a person on call 24 hours a day.
Generally places will have the one of the workers up top ride the last gondola down and not let anyone else on. When the worker gets o the bottom the line is considered cleared and is shut down. Maybe that was the procedure there too and it just wasn’t followed?
I think I can guess the name of the worker...
ouch...
Frozen? (Not Disney's 2013 Frozen).
Well...it’s always the last place you look, isn’t it?
Yep. They’s gots procedures for these kinds of things... Somebody didn’t do their job. Why, who knows. But somebody didn’t do their job.
Gondolas are enclosed so without forcing a door or busting a window, she could not throw anything.
With Mary Ann, Ginger, and all the coconut cream pies you could eat, I never could understand the rush to leave. Hell, at my age Mrs. Howell looks pretty good.
It’s primitive as can be!
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