Mine elevator incident that killed tour guide remains under investigation

By MATTHEW BROWN, AMY BETH HANSON, MEAD GRUVER and JESSE BEDAYN, Associated Press

DENVER (AP) — Investigators were trying to figure out Friday what led to an elevator accident inside a former Colorado gold mine that killed a tour guide, injured four other people and left a separate group of 12 people trapped. for hours at the bottom of the tourist attraction 300 meters below the surface.

The elevator descended to the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine on Thursday, in the mountains near Colorado Springs. About 500 feet down, the person operating the elevator at the surface “felt something strange” and stopped it, Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said.

The elevator was still working and the people on board were brought back within 20 minutes, the sheriff said. An elevator door was broken when it was lifted.

“We don’t know if the door malfunctioned or not or if something else occurred. There’s a lot going on in these little elevators,” he said. “All we know is that the door was broken in some way.”

The dead man, Patrick Weier, 46, had a young son and was from the nearby town of Victor, Colorado. The exact circumstances of his death have not been released, but the sheriff said he died because of a mechanical problem with the elevator and not a medical issue.

Eleven other people, including two children, who were in the elevator during the incident were taken along after the accident. Four had minor injuries, including back, neck and arm pain, the sheriff said.

Twelve adults from a second group were trapped underground for about six hours while engineers made sure the elevator could be used. The group had access to water and used radios to communicate with authorities, who told them there was a problem with the elevator, Mikesell said.

They were hoisted in groups of four for 30 minutes. Authorities were prepared to bring them in by rope if necessary.

Most of the people who were in the elevator when it malfunctioned were later taken to a local relief center, where some were given showers, new clothes and sandwiches, said Ted Borden of the Community of Caring Foundation in Cripple Creek.

“It was still very raw, but there was a good camaraderie,” Borden said.

Elevator accidents in mines are extremely rare, said Steven Schafrik, associate professor of mining engineering at the University of Kentucky. They have been used by industry to transport people and materials since the mid-1800s, he said, and modern elevators are equipped with fail-safe devices that prevent them from falling far if a cable breaks.

“They’re ridiculously safe,” Schafrik said of mining elevators.

He declined to comment directly on the Colorado crash.

Mikesell said the family that owns the mine has operated it as a tourist attraction for generations and works to make it safe.

Mines that operate as tourist attractions in Colorado must assign someone to inspect the mines and transportation systems daily, according to the state Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety. Mikesell said he did not know the date of the last inspection at the Mollie Kathleen mine. Inspection records were not immediately available online.

Changes to the elevator were made in 1988 after the mine came under new ownership, according to the mine’s website. A second car capable of carrying nine people was suspended below the existing elevator and a new motor was installed to accommodate the increased weight, the website says.

The sheriff said the broken door was on the car above. He didn’t know which one the victim was in.

Weier was a “phenomenal” guide and told visitors he was an experienced miner, said Jennifer Nolan of Zanesville, Ohio, who visited the mine in August.

The tour began with Nolan’s group descending into the shaft with six people in each of the two elevator cars.

The cages were “very, very, very tight,” she said. People stood shoulder to shoulder, but the trip was peaceful, she recalled.

A mine inspector was among those taking part in the visit, Nolan said, but she believed he was inspecting the underground operations, not the elevator. The area at the bottom of the shaft was large, with demonstrations of mining technology over the decades.

The accident was being investigated by local and state authorities, along with the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The incident, which was reported to authorities around noon, happened during the final week of the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine’s season before it closed for the winter, Mikesell said.

The mine’s owners issued a statement Friday expressing their condolences and thanking emergency crews. The mine will remain closed until further notice, they said.

The mine is in Cripple Creek, a town of about 1,100 people southwest of Colorado Springs.

It opened in 1800 and closed in 1961, but continued as a tourist site. Its website describes a one-hour tour where visitors can see veins of gold in the rock and ride an underground tram.

A woman named Mollie Kathleen Gortner discovered the mine site in 1891 when she saw quartz mixed with gold, according to the company’s website.