A Rescue of Epic Proportions

Where’s Charlton Heston when you really need him?

The actor could have been a big help Saturday afternoon when a Universal Studios Hollywood employee drove her car the wrong way--into the theme park’s Red Sea attraction.

The woman, who works in the studio’s wardrobe department, was rescued unharmed from the middle of the lake after about an hour by county firefighters.

Playing Moses in one of his most famous movie roles, Heston parted the waters of the mechanized “sea” on the studio’s lot. Pharaoh’s soldiers followed him and were drowned when the waters rejoined. Now the Red Sea is a popular attraction on the studio’s tour tram ride.

But the unlucky employee was not familiar with how it works, said county Fire Capt. Rod Washington.

“She got there after the lake had parted so a tram could go through,” Washington said. “So all she saw was the path that’s about as wide as a road, and she thought she could go through there, too.”

As a tram exits the lake, it triggers a device that causes the parting waters to meet, Washington said, and “she was trapped.”

An Urban Search and Rescue team from West Hollywood rescued the 32-year-old woman with ropes and harnesses. Her name was not released.

Washington said he was stunned when firefighters first got the rescue call about 2:20 p.m.

“I couldn’t believe it, but now I can understand how it happened,” he said.

The woman, who usually works weekdays, customarily leaves by the studio’s back gate at the east end of the lot. But that gate, which exits onto Barham Boulevard, was locked Saturday, forcing her to find another way out.

“She was going to attempt to exit on Lankershim at the west end of the studio,” Washington said. “But apparently, she wasn’t familiar with the tram ride.”

Or, it seems, the movie.