In what is a scene out of one of my many nightmares, dozens of people will spend the night in cable cars suspended above the French Alps near Chamonix.
The cable cars were meandering peacefully up the mountain according to ABC News, ferrying tourists when the cables that connect them got tangled, causing the cars to stop at an elevation of 3,000 meters or close to 1.6 miles. French authorities rescued about 65 people from the cable cars, transferring them to another set of cable cars (I bet they were fucking thrilled!) and depositing them safely in Italy. Conditions on the mountain worsened as the day went on and the rescue mission was called off until the morning. Forty-five lucky souls are spending the night in these tuna cans of doom, equipped with blankets, food and water.
The Guardian reports that the mayor of Chamonix, Eric Fournier, says that there is “nothing fundamentally to fear.” Easy for you to say, monsieur, because your feet are on the ground and you’re not stuck in a swinging metal cage that smells of flop sweat and stale baguette and fear.
As a person who nearly had a heart attack on the swings at Coney Island this past weekend, I hope that the rescue workers snuck up a bottle of wine or two to make the dark night go by a little bit faster. The rescue mission will resume early Friday morning and hopefully, it will be just fine.
