The elevator was descending into the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine near the town of Cripple Creek, and the twelve who were rescued were about 1,000 feet below ground.

One person was killed and 12 people were rescued after being trapped for about six hours at the bottom of a former Colorado gold mine when an elevator malfunctioned at the tourist site, authorities said.

The elevator was descending into the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine near the town of Cripple Creek when it had a mechanical problem around 500 feet (152 meters) beneath the surface, creating a “severe danger for the participants,” Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said.

The 12 adults who were trapped about 1,000 feet (305 meters) below ground had access to water and used radios to communicate with authorities, who told them there was an elevator issue, Mikesell said.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
    49·
    2 months ago

    Mines that operate as tourist attractions in Colorado must designate someone to inspect the mines and the transportation systems daily, according to the state Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety. Mikesell said he didn’t know the date of the last inspection. Records of the inspections weren’t immediately available online.

    I feel like if someone is supposed to be inspecting things daily that there should be an easily accessible record of those inspections.

    • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
      161·
      2 months ago

      There’s a AvE video about a gondola where the inspector/maintenance engineer left the maintenance clamps on one of the emergency brakes that kept tugging on a cable. (This thing keeps the brakes open).

      When something else failed, the emergency brakes never closed on the cable and it ended up just being a box of arms and legs at the bottom of the hill.

      My point is it’s never one guys fault, a lot of things failed for it come to this one guy being allowed to leave the maintenance equipment on for months

      • Fosheze@lemmy.worldEnglish
        16·
        2 months ago

        I used to love AvEs videos before he got on the antivax conspiracy theorist train. Is he still doing that?

        • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
          7·
          2 months ago

          Haven’t seen a video like that. I don’t watch a lot because I’m not interested in all the tooling and stuff. Sad to hear such a sensible guy spewing that shit.

          • Fosheze@lemmy.worldEnglish
            7·
            2 months ago

            Ah, yeah, I used to watch him for the tool videos and then when covid happened he got super into antivax conspiracy stuff and was a proud vocal supporter of the convoy antivax protest. That’s when I finally unsubbed.

          • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
            1·
            2 months ago

            He did a three minute video praising the Truckers Protest a while back and I stopped watching that. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doubled down, but that “protest” was always a scam and I lost a lot of respect for him for not identifying it as such.

    • Thetimefarm@lemm.ee
      5·
      2 months ago

      Yeah but who knows what qualifies as an inspection. It might have just been an employee walking the route every morning before letting customers. Checking air quality is probably the most important thing to do frequently.