Elevator door 'broken' during Colorado mine tour accident that killed 1 person and trapped 12.

Matthew Brown, Amy Beth Hanson, Mead Gruver and Jesse Bedayn
| Associated Press

Denver — Investigators were trying Friday to understand what led to an elevator accident at a former Colorado gold mine that killed a tour guide, injured four other people and left a separate group of 12 people stranded for hours at the foot of tourist attraction 1,000 feet. (305 meters) below the surface.

The elevator was descending Thursday into the Mollie Kathleen gold mine in the mountains near Colorado Springs. About 500 feet down, the person operating the elevator from the surface “felt something strange” and stopped it, Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said.

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

“We don’t know whether or not the door malfunctioned or if something else happened. There’s a lot going on in these little elevators,” he said. “We just know the door was broken somehow.”

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

Eleven other people, including two children, who were riding the elevator during the accident were taken with him after the accident. Four of them suffered minor injuries, including back, neck and arm pain, the sheriff said.

Twelve adults in a second group were stuck underground for about six hours while engineers ensured 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. The authorities were ready to pull them up with a rope if necessary.

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

“It was still very raw, but there was 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 transport people and equipment since the mid-1800s, he explained, and modern elevators are equipped with safety features that prevent them from falling very high if the elevator breaks. ‘a cable.

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

He declined to comment directly on the Colorado accident.

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

Mines that operate as tourist attractions in Colorado must designate someone to inspect mines and transportation systems daily, according to the state’s 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.

Modifications were made to the elevator in 1988, after the mine was transferred to a new owner, according to the mine’s website. A second car capable of carrying nine people was suspended under the existing elevator and a new motor was installed to accommodate the increased weight, the website states.

The sheriff said the broken door was on the taller car. He did not know where the victim was.

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 elevator’s two cabins.

The cages were “very, very, very narrow,” she said. People stood side by side, but the ride went smoothly, she recalls.

A mining inspector was part of their tour, Nolan said, but she thought he was inspecting underground operations and not the elevator. The area at the bottom of the shaft was vast, with demonstrations of mining technology over the decades.

The accident was under investigation by local and state authorities, as well as the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

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

The mine’s owners released a statement Friday expressing their condolences and thanking emergency responders. The mine will be 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 the 1800s and closed in 1961, but remained a tourist site. Its website describes a one-hour tour during which visitors can see veins of gold in 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.

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

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