OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Cape Town | Thursday
THE family of a British teenager watched in horror as she was crushed to death by the cable car mechanism on Table Mountain, moments after she had apparently ignored warnings not to enter a restricted area.
Cara Weaver, 14 – described by family members as fun-loving and sporty – was reportedly trying to abseil from the cable car platform when a heavy steel bar swung over and pinned her to the rock, authorities said.
She was evacuated by helicopter to a Cape Town hospital, but died of severe injuries to her neck and head, a police spokesman said.
Desperate attempts to revive her by onlookers, including John Harrison, the head of the Table Mountain Aerial Cable Way Company, failed.
It was not very pleasant to have a young girl in that condition in your arms. Obviously none of us was a trained doctor, but we tried our best,” Harrison said.
“We lost her pulse a number of times. I tried mouth-to-mouth on her but she did not respond. I was there within four minutes of it happening.”
The bar which crushed the girl, known as a guide, steadies the arriving cabin to prevent it swinging into the rock.
“It looks like one of the guides actually caught her around her neck,” said Harrison. “It’s hydraulic, a pretty strong system. It would appear she got herself caught somewhere between the rock and the moving guide.”
Harrison said the area was strictly off-limits to abseilers, and that staff had warned the girl and her brother that it was a “no-go area.”
“They had thrown the rope down, they were looking for more places to secure the rope,” he said.
Trevor Ball, who owns an abseiling company which operates on the mountain, said: “This is an area where there are extremely large and dangerous moving mechanisms. It was complete madness to go anywhere near the area.”
He said the area might have appeared to be an easy climb because of all the cable car equipment fastened to the rock face.
Table Mountains cable car, which has been operating since 1923 and was upgraded in 1997, transports several thousand people up and down the mountain each day at the height of the holiday season. – AFP