At least one person is dead and others are injured after an equipment malfunction trapped nearly two dozen people underground in a Colorado tourist mine, Teller County sheriff’s officials said Thursday.
All 23 people who were trapped Thursday in the Mollie Kathleen Mine have been rescued, the sheriff’s office said.
It is unclear how the one person died, officials said. At an evening news conference, Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said the death was a “tragic accident” that was a result of the elevator malfunction.
It is going to take a full investigation to find out what happened, he said.
“Accidents happen when dealing with this kind of machinery,” Mikesell said.
Earlier Thursday, a problem was reported with the elevator, which prompted the rescue attempt, officials said.
Initially, 11 people, including two children, were rescued and the remaining 12 people were stuck in a shaft at the bottom of the mine. They had water and blankets and were in communication with responders, officials said.
The sheriff’s office said those in the group of 11 rescued reported neck and back pain, and others said they were traumatized. None of the 12 people in the second round of rescue efforts was injured, Mikesell said.
The body of the person who died was recovered in the initial rescue, and officials are working to contact their family, Mikesell said.
The final rescue from the 1,000-foot level of the mine was made at about 7 p.m. local time, Mikesell said, after the group of 12 — all adults from out of state — had been stuck in the mine for about six hours.
Those 12 “came up very safely,” four at a time, Mikesell said, adding that they are all in “good spirits.”
Mikesell said the owner of the mine was “instrumental” in making sure the equipment was able to bring everyone back up above ground.
The first group of people was stuck in an elevator that stopped halfway down the shaft, Mikesell said. When it finally reached the surface, engineers inspected it to ensure there were no other issues.
Once cleared, they were able to lower the elevator down and bring it back up with no one in it, Mikesell said, and made the decision to use the elevator to rescue the remaining people.
Mikesell said rescue crews only told the people there was an issue with the elevator, and, once rescued, people said they were thankful they didn’t know more.
Sheriff’s officials earlier made it clear that the mine did not collapse and that the incident occurred as a result of an equipment malfunction.
The last time an incident occurred at the mine was in 1986, officials said. Nobody died in that incident, but people were trapped in the elevator then, too, Mikesell said.
Teller County is just over 100 miles south of Denver.
Gov. Jared Polis said he is “relieved” the 12 people trapped were safely rescued and offered condolences to the friends and family of the one person who died.
Polis also thanked Mikesell and the rest of the rescue team for their “swift response and tireless efforts.”
“Thanks to this collaborative effort, each of these individuals will return home safely,” Polis said.
Mikesell said Polis sent “as much needed personnel as we could get” to help with the rescue effort, including inspectors to make sure the malfunctioning elevator was working properly and mine safety crews. He added that together with first responders, “we were able to put together a plan that worked, and that plan was to bring them up through the elevator system.”
The mine was set to close Sunday for the season, according to its website. Mikesell said the mine had closed for the night Thursday and the business hopes to be up and running again next season.
It offers one-hour tours in which visitors can “vertically descend 100 stories into the earth” to “witness the evolution of overground mining,” the website says.
