Elevator door ‘broken’ in Colorado mine tour accident – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Investigators tried Friday to determine what led to an elevator accident at a former gold mine in Colorado that left a tour guide dead, four others injured and a separate group of 12 people stranded for hours at the base of the tourist attraction, 1,000 feet (300 meters) underground Surface.

The elevator descended into the Mollie Kathleen gold mine in the mountains near Colorado Springs on Thursday. At about 500 feet, the person operating the elevator from the surface “felt something strange” and stopped the elevator, Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said.

The elevator was still operational and passengers were brought back up within 20 minutes, the sheriff said. One of the elevator doors was broken while it was being lifted.

“We don’t know if the door was broken or if something else happened. A lot happens in these little elevators,” he said. “All we know is that the door was broken somehow.”

The man killed, Patrick Weier, 46, had a young child and was from the nearby town of Victor, Colorado. The exact circumstances of his death were not disclosed, but the sheriff said he died of a mechanical problem with the elevator and not a medical problem.

Eleven other people, including two children, who were traveling in the elevator during the accident, were raised using it 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.

At least one person is dead and more than ten people are trapped after an equipment malfunction at a tourist mine in Colorado.

They were pulled up in groups of four over 30 minutes. The officers were ready to pull her up with a 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, an associate professor of mining engineering at the University of Kentucky. They have been used by industry to move people and materials since the mid-19th century, he said, and modern elevators are equipped with fail-safe devices to prevent them from falling far if the cable breaks.

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

He declined to comment directly on the Colorado accident.

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

Mines that serve as tourist attractions in Colorado are required to designate 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. Records of the inspections were not immediately available online.

According to the mine’s website, changes were made to the elevator in 1988 after the mine passed under new ownership. A second car, capable of carrying nine people, was suspended beneath the existing elevator and a new engine was installed to handle the increased weight, the website says.

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

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

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

The cages were “very, very, very tight,” she said. People stood shoulder to shoulder, but the ride went smoothly, she recalled.

A mine inspector was among those on her tour, Nolan said, but she believed he was inspecting what was going on underground, not the elevator. The area at the bottom of the shaft was large and provided demonstrations of mining technology over the decades.

The accident was investigated by local and state authorities, as well as the US Mine Safety and Health Administration and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The incident, reported to authorities around midday, occurred in the final week of the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine season before it closes for the winter, Mikesell said.

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

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

It opened in the 19th century and closed in 1961, but continued to serve as a tourist attraction. The website describes a one-hour tour where visitors can see gold veins in the rock and ride the subway.

According to the company’s website, a woman named Mollie Kathleen Gortner discovered the mine’s location in 1891 when she saw quartz laced with gold.

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Brown reported from Billings, Montana, Gruver from Cheyenne, Wyoming and Amy Beth Hanson from Helena, Montana.