Snowboarder Trapped Overnight in Ski Gondola for 15 Hours Rubbed Her Hands and Feet Together to Keep Warm

“I screamed desperately until I lost my voice,” recalled Monica Laso, who did not have her phone with her at the time

A snowboarder enjoying time at a California resort with friends spent 15 hours stuck overnight in a ski gondola.

Monica Laso told KCRA 3 in an interview translated from Spanish that she’d been snowboarding before she was led to a gondola at the Heavenly Mountain Resort in Lake Tahoe by a worker there around 5 p.m. on Thursday after she told them she was too tired to snowboard down the mountain.

But about two minutes into the ride, the gondola stopped, leaving her stranded in midair. Laso didn’t have her phone or any type of light that might draw attention to her.

All she could do was scream. “I screamed desperately until I lost my voice,” she told KCRA 3.

None of her cries for help were answered. So, while her worried friends below reported her missing, Laso said she rubbed her hands and feet together to help keep her body warm overnight amid below-freezing temperatures.

“I felt very frustrated,” she recalled. Laso’s ordeal finally ended on Friday morning when the gondola began operating again.

A representative for the resort didn’t immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment. The resort told KCRA 3 it is investigating what happened.

“We did an assessment just to assess what her current status was, and she was treated and released,” Kim George, a representative for South Lake Tahoe Fire and Rescue, told KCRA 3.

George noted that Laso’s incident was the first time the organization had responded to an accident of that nature in more than 20 years.

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