Tram Ride Turns Into 11-Hour Ordeal

April 19, 2006 — -- The cable car trip over the East River between Manhattan and residential Roosevelt Island normally takes four minutes.

On Tuesday, however, at 5:22 p.m., the 30-year-old commuter tram lost power, turning the short ride into an 11-hour ordeal for some passengers.

Sixty-nine commuters -- including children and two babies -- were suspended in two cable cars. One car was 250 feet above the river, the other, 150 feet above First Avenue. When efforts to restart the tram with a backup generator failed, New York City police scrambled for a rescue plan.

In a hastily rigged cage powered by another generator, police rode the cable to the suspended cars, first delivering food, drinks and diapers to those stranded. Then they attached the cage to the tram's roof, opened a porthole, and dropped a ladder, taking the passengers out, families and children first, in a series of repeated rescue trips that took hours.

"I just told myself, don't look down," said Dax Maier, 12, of the rescue.

Dax, who was traveling with his baby sitter, Naida Mattis, had been on his way to a tennis lesson when the tram froze and left him hanging above the East River. He called his father to let him know what had happened.

"I said, 'Are you scared?'" Dax's father, Brian Maier, said. "He said, 'A little bit.' I said, 'Well, you have to be brave because you have to be there for everybody and your baby sitter.' "

Indeed, Dax needed to comfort his baby sitter, who is afraid of heights.

"She's a very, very timid person, and since she was scared, I was just like, I just wanted her to feel better, so I tried patting her on the back and tried to calm her down," Dax said.

Dax said adults on the tram danced to cell phone rings and told jokes to entertain the kids. He also took a nap.

"Some of us were tired, so we just went on the floor and we laid down," he said. "We were exhausted."

How did people handle being stuck for so long without restroom facilities?

"Well, there was this one kid who peed in a cup," Dax said.

Dax's parents drove to Roosevelt Island and waited seven hours for him and Mattis to be rescued.

"The first thing I gave him was two chocolate chip cookies, which he wolfed down," said Dax's mother, Robbyn Maier.

Dax learned an important lesson when he was hanging above the swirling river.

"I learned that if you stick together in one group and not panic, you can always go a long way and good things will happen," he said.