By Dennis Romero -
NBC News
A Hispanic woman has reported that she was trapped in a ski resort cable car overnight in South Lake Tahoe, California.
Authorities are investigating the incident.
Mónica Laso
was at the Heavenly Mountain Resort with some friends on Thursday when she got tired of walking and asked a worker to tell her how to get to a cable car that would take her to the base, she said in an interview with KCRA, an NBC affiliate in Sacrament.
Laso said the worker guided her to a cable car when it was just a few minutes before 5:00 p.m., but when she got on and began her journey down the mountain, the cable car stopped, leaving her stranded for 15 hours.
Since he didn't have his phone, he screamed for help, but no one answered him.
“I screamed desperately until I lost my voice,” Laso said.
His friends, for their part, reported Laso's disappearance to the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office.
The woman said she was only able to return to land when the gondola started operating again on Friday morning.
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“I felt very frustrated,” she told station KCRA.
Temperatures in the area have been about 20 degrees Fahrenheit overnight, according to data from the National Weather Service.
Laso said
he kept warm by rubbing his hands and feet.
Kim George, chief of the South Lake Tahoe Fire Rescue Department, said by email that her firefighters treated the woman in the morning.
The first South Lake Tahoe department officers to respond to the scene arrived at 8:28 a.m., George said.
Laso “was evaluated and refused to be transported,” he added.
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Heavenly Mountain Resort staff are investigating what happened, said Tom Fortune, its vice president and chief operating officer.
“The safety and well-being of our guests is our top priority at Heavenly Mountain Resort,” he said in a statement.
According to the resort's website and that of the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority, the 3.2-kilometer cable car normally operates from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. It is not yet known why Laso was told it would be running, when they were almost 5:00 p.m.
Fortune said in a statement that the resort wants to get to the bottom of the incident.
“We are investigating this situation with the utmost seriousness,” he stated.