B1. Seven School Kids STUCK in Cable Car | 900ft Above River

Hello, today's true B1 story is the craziest story ever about a cable car.

Eight people are hanging 900 feet above a river all day, and only one wire, just one wire remains, and the whole world is watching.

The morning's first light comes over the mountain peak at Sukai Sar. The sun lights up everything in the valley of this high mountainous area of Pakistan.

And on the edge of a far cliff there are seven schoolboys, and they're all waiting in a line for the cable car. And above their heads, the wires, the wires creak in the morning wind.

Every day the boys take the cable car to school. Otherwise it takes them two hours to walk to school.

So the cable car is a metal box that hangs on two thick metal wires, and about ten people fit inside. And the locals of that area, the locals made it, so there are no safety rules really.

So every day the schoolboys queue and they take the cable car to school. That must be fun, eh?

Sharif is 15 years old, and today is not a normal school day for Sharif. Today he is going to school to collect the results of his final exams, and he has already told his mother, "I passed." Now he just has to go and find out if he was right.

Sharif climbs into the cable car and he counts the heads. He's a caring boy. One, two, three — yes, yes, everyone's here. He touches his schoolmates on the shoulder, one at a time.

And a 20-year-old man, Gulfaraz, is there with them too. He has a phone and he's chatting to his mother.

And one of the boys, who's 16, he's not going to school today. Oh no. So he has a weak heart, a heart condition, and he's on his way to the hospital instead.

Gulfaraz gives him a place on the side of the cable car by the rail, where the wind is moving freely and the air is there. Sit there, your face looks grey.

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To help your learning there's a free 60 language transcript, no email is needed. And if you subscribe, it will not get you out of the cable car, but it will get you out of B1 level English.

Back to the story.

The cable car leaves, it lifts off, and they're up, up in the air. Great. Great.

The car takes its usual route across the valley, and far, far below them is a grey river and many thousands of rocks and trees.

Until — snap.

The car goes up, down, up, and it swings down onto its side. The boys shout and they fall on top of each other.

The floor is now the wall and the wall is now the floor. What's going on?

And the cable car now hangs in silence, quietly swinging a little, left to right to left, hanging from the one cable, the one wire left.

Sharif holds the frame as tightly as his hands can hold.

He looks down for one second and then up again quickly. Below him is nothing but 900 feet of just space.

Nobody move.

They take their phones out one by one, trying to phone their parents.

"Mom, dad, please see the cable car. I think there's a problem. I'm scared."

Mothers and fathers and relatives and crowds, they all start gathering on the hill, and everybody is looking at the small cable car that's hanging high in the sky on its side at 45 degrees.

Only an hour ago Sharif's mother kissed his forehead as he left for school, and now she was on the hillside seeing her son in the cable car, and Sharif wasn't sure if he could see her.

"My mother says," Sharif says, "help is coming. She says help is coming."

Two hours later the hillside is filled with the whole town, all there. And Sharif, he tries to think of something else to keep his mind busy. So while hanging sideways he counts the people on the hillside — 90, 95, 100 — but nearly 8,000 people are watching them.

And many below are now recording on their phones, and the recordings are going out to the world, and people watch the hanging cable car on TVs and in shops and offices and hospitals all across the country.

They are in the middle of nowhere though, and the closest road is four hours away. Four hours away. So any help has to be from a helicopter, so the help must come from the air. But at the same time, you can't use a helicopter once the sun has gone down and it's dark.

---

In the nearest town they write a letter asking for a helicopter. But how long will this take?

Now older men on the hillside, they're talking about 1994. And in 1994, 13 women and children fell from a cable car in these mountains, and only one person survived — a baby.

And now the men who built this cable car, they're looking up at the remaining wire, and they say the wire should last another 10 hours, god willing. Another 10 hours before it breaks.

---

After four hours on the wire, the sun is boiling and high in the sky in Pakistan, and there's nowhere to hide from the sun.

It's so hot, sweat runs into Sharif's eyes. There's no water, there's no food. One boy vomits over the side, and the boy with the heart condition, he just goes unconscious, he faints. Wake up bro, wake up. Sharif shakes him but his eyes stay closed.

This boy sat next to Sharif in class for four years.

Sharif moves his arm under the boy's head to support his head.

Now Gulfaraz's phone rings and it's a news station. He talks fast. Nobody here has had water since morning. For god's sake, help us now.

Gulfaraz holds the phone out into the cable car so the journalists can hear the crying boys.

---

Meanwhile, a helicopter comes up the valley.

The boys see the helicopter. They want to cheer but they're scared. The cable car will move too much.

Now the helicopter is above them, but it can't get too close. Another wire is blocking the helicopter from getting too close.

Then the wind from the helicopter, and the cable car swings side to side under the helicopter. The boys are holding so tight that their knuckles are turning white, and they pray, and the wire groans, but they can hear a super loud noise of the helicopter above.

And the helicopter can't get to them, so it pulls back, and the helicopter flies away.

The sound of the helicopter disappears and the cable car stops swinging.

---

Seven hours on the wire. Their phones are dying, and the boy with the heart condition, he still isn't waking up.

"He has not opened his eyes for three hours!" Gulfaraz tells the journalists.

Now the helicopter returns. It flies high above them and a soldier comes down on a rope.

The soldier reaches into the car and he gives the boys bottles of water and biscuits.

12 hours on the wire.

The soldier comes down from the helicopter again and he takes the youngest boy. He straps the boy to him and they shoot up, up on the rope. And as the soldier and the boy get into the helicopter, the crowds on the hillside, they're cheering. "Yes!" they say. "That's one! They've got one!"

The soldier comes back for the next boy, down on the rope. But the soldier's rope, it catches against the cable car's wire, and the cable car is suddenly swinging sideways again.

It's too dangerous, and once again the helicopter leaves. In the distance the helicopter is gone. Sharif keeps his eyes on the helicopter until it's a small dot and it disappears over the mountains.

---

Now the sun is going down. The last of the sunlight disappears behind the mountain and the valley quickly becomes dark.

The helicopter cannot fly after dark.

Now it is all quiet and there is only the wind.

Sometimes the boys quietly say one or two words, but rarely they get a response.

There's no phone signal at this time in the valley.

And down below on the hillside, the boys now see small lights of torches and car lights pointing at them. And also teams on the ground are talking to each other by flashing their torches — on, on, off, off, on, off, on, off at each other across the mountain.

Sharif tries to hold in his tears at this point, but he needs to be brave, he needs to stay brave for the others.

---

Then a light moves towards them along the wire.

Someone is coming. The light moves forward and back and forward again, and when the wind is strong the light stops.

Sharif shakes people's shoulders. Help is coming, help is coming.

And a blurry shape of a man appears in the darkness. A man hanging on a small wheel, and the man's wearing safety equipment.

He gets to the car, and a torch, a light, shines on Sharif's face. A strong hand reaches in and puts straps around Sharif's legs and straps around his chest.

The man speaks but it's hard because of the wind.

Let go! Trust the rope and let go, let go! the man shouts.

---

Sharif opens his fingers and he swings out over the valley.

He looks down but instantly looks up again.

The wind fills his mouth. Far below, the river roars.

They're pulling him across the wire. Pull, pull, pull. Below him the shouting, the shouting from the people on the hillside grows louder, and the lights are growing brighter.

The ground comes up, and the smell of the earth and plants and dust fills Sharif's nose.

Then hands are grabbing him all over, many hands, and they pull him in.

And the other boys follow him down, one by one, and all around parents are crying with joy.

(Music)

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The next morning, Sharif's mother kisses his forehead as he leaves the house. The morning's first light comes over the Sukai Sar mountain peak. It lights up the river, the trees and the hills.

But today the cable car is not running. Oh no. Today Sharif has to walk to school. His exam results are still on the other side.

And when the newspapers come, the boys ask for two things: a school in their own village, and a bridge.

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So would you get back in that cable car? Would you get back in the cable car after that happened to you?

Tell me in the comments. I reply to everyone. And if you want to speak your opinion, check my app Coffee Chat English.

This was a true story. The events are real, but the thoughts and the dialogue are imagined storytelling.

Have an amazing day everyone.