[Kzin]

Oh man this is not for Kzin, I don't like heights .... this would have freaked my shit OUT!

High-Wire Rescue Over East River
By JENNIFER 8. LEE

A four-minute trip on the Roosevelt Island Tramway turned into a harrowing overnight ordeal as a series of power failures left about 70 people suspended hundreds of feet in the air, forcing a daring rescue over the East River that ended early this morning.

By 4:30 a.m. — nearly 12 hours after the trams first stalled — all the passengers were off the two trams, which had been moving in opposite directions, one towards Manhattan's East Side and the other towards Roosevelt Island.

The tramway remained shut today, by order of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who said at the scene late Tuesday night that it would not run until a thorough evaluation had been conducted.

Rescuers began their first midair rescue efforts around 11 p.m. after initial attempts to start the generator and backup generator failed. The rescuers shimmied a large orange wire gondola up towards the Roosevelt Island-bound tram, which was suspended over the East River with 47 passengers.

Passengers, including several children and an elderly woman with a walker, were pulled from a side window and loaded into the gondola, which had a capacity of about a dozen people. The passengers were all rescued by 3:30 a.m. through five midair rescues that took about 45 minutes each.

"I felt like I was a movie stuntman a little bit," said Dax Maier, 12, after he was rescued in the second group. "I just told myself, 'Don't look down.' " Dax was heading over to Roosevelt Island for tennis lessons with his baby sitter, Naida Mattis.

Rescuers used an industrial crane to unload the other, Manhattan-bound car, which was suspended 150 feet in the air over First Avenue with 21 passengers, including two infants aged 13 months and 14 months. The two trips needed to empty the car were finished by 4:30 a.m.

Cheers accompanied each successful rescue effort. Children from the first group, which had eight children and five adults, exchanged high-fives with Mayor Bloomberg after touching ground at the Roosevelt Island terminal about 11:30 p.m. Passengers were greeted with juice, cookies and, for several Hasidic Jews in the first group, matzo. In addition the city had set up stretchers and ambulances, in case they needed medical attention.

Passengers described putting on harnesses and swinging across a two-and-a-half-foot gap between the tram and the gondola, which had crawled up along the length of the 3,100-foot stretch of cable with self-generated diesel power.