Man rescued from Harties cable car describes his seven hours in the sky

Jacques Potgieter and his wife Leoné from Northcliff, Johannesburg thought they were in for a romantic getaway on Saturday, but instead they spent about seven hours stuck in a cable car at the Aerial Cableway in Hartbeespoort, reports the Centurion Rekord.

General manager, Iain Gunn said on Saturday that they experienced a mechanical fault and had to stop the system. He however did call for mountain rescue teams and 4X4 teams to escort about 125 people down the mountain.

“We were in car 11 of the cableway system along with three other strangers.” Potgieter said there were about 15 people who had to be “rescued” from the cable cars themselves.

The rest of the people were on the mountain. He said they got onto the cable car at about 12:30.

“A few minutes in, just as we were about to get to the top, we stopped with a bit of force and all of us panicked in absolute silence.”

He said they sat there for a few moments when they heard it all started up again to their relief, but suddenly they went backwards.

“Emergency brakes kicked in and there we were. Hanging in the air. We phoned Iain after a while to find out what was going on when he calmly told us that the main bearing had broken and rescue teams were on their way to get us out.”

He said their car was the highest one up. “We were only adults in our car. The other cars had babies and children in so they were left for last.”

He said the brave man who came to their rescue told them, they had to put a six-month-old hysterical baby in a bag and close the bag as to not frighten the child even further.

Potgieter said they were rescued after seven hours. “We couldn’t understand how it could possibly have taken so long but seeing the amount of work those brave folks from Mountain Search and Rescue had to go through to get to us, we all found a brand new respect for their jobs.”

He said the car’s door had to be broken open. They were lowered one by one down to safety. “I was the last to leave the cable car.”

“The amazing part is that they are all volunteers as well. They need a  lot more recognition than they currently receive.”

He said they also have a lot of gratitude for Iain who kept them calm during the whole ordeal and gave them a nice hot meal, cold beers and refunds after. “Some people even got a free helicopter ride off the mountain.”

So the new friends of Cable Car 11, the Potgieter’s, Sean Wessels, Judi Zietsman and Riette Zietsman sat down and had a great laugh over what had just happened.

“Looking back at it all, it was a big laugh, only now, because we are safely back on the ground. A big thanks again to each and everyone of our rescuers. We simply cannot say thank you enough.”

– Caxton News Service