Southern Teller Residents Mourn the Loss of “One of Their Own Heroes”
Trevor Phipps and Rick Langenberg
In the wake of a tragic accident at the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine tourist attraction in Cripple Creek, an incident that commanded national news attention for days, locals are still coming out in waves of support for the victims.
However, despite this unprecedented level of support and community unity, many questions surrounding the startling incident remain unanswered. What is known is that an elevator malfunction on the mine tourist attraction caused the death of tour guide and Victor resident Patrick Weier. It also left nearly half a dozen Mollie Kathleen tour patrons with minor injuries.
On Oct. 17, the community celebrated Weier’s life with a large procession that occurred downtown Cripple Creek and culminated with a ceremony in the city park. It attracted hundreds of people, with many community leaders participating in the celebration of Weier’s life. Family members also put out a GoFundMe Page to aid the victim’s family as he left behind a seven-year-old son. A number of community members had collectively donated more than $30,000 to the effort to support Patrick Weier’s family, shortly after the funding drive began.
Weier wasn’t the only victim of the Mollie Kathleen accident, which occurred on Oct. 10,
Four others on the same elevator as Weier sustained minor injuries during the malfunction. According to Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell, the accident stemmed from a mishap with the elevator’s door. During the elevator malfunction, 11 people were on the elevator when it happened. These tour-goers, who were with Weier, were all shortly rescued after the incident.
However, 12 others were still stuck at the bottom of the 1,000-foot-deep mine for more than eight hours before being rescued by a large safety crew. Their plight ignited national media coverage, with the incident almost rivaling the coverage of the Florida hurricanes. The incident was first reported around noon on October 10 and the last people stuck in the mine surfaced from the deep hole just after 7 p.m. that evening.
As of TMJ’s press time, there was still not a lot of information regarding what exactly caused the incident. But the sheriff did say that federal inspectors had taken over the investigation and that an official report will be released once the investigation concludes.
“A newspaper clipping from 1994 in The Gazette Telegraph detailed an incident in July, where fifty tourists were trapped for four hours after an equipment failure,” the KRDO report stated. “The article says just a month later, 13 tourists would be trapped for the same reason for 12 and a half hours.”
Timeline of Events
According to some of the people who were stuck in the mine during the latest incident, they entered the bottom of the mine on their tour at around 10:30 a.m. When their tour was over, and they went to get back on the elevator to ride it to surface elevation about an hour later. But several tour-goers knew something was wrong. They reported that a rock and some timber had fallen to the bottom of the mine.
The sheriff’s office received a call requesting emergency assistance at around noon that day. As soon as first responders arrived, they determined that an accident occurred due to a malfunction in the elevator. Moreover, they determined that the mine shaft did not collapse, contrary to rumors circulating at the time.
When the malfunction on the elevator occurred, there were 12 people (Weier, the tour guide and 11 tourists including two children) on the elevator at the mine shaft’s 500-foot mark about halfway down to the attraction viewing section, which reached 1,000 feet underground. Cripple Creek fire department officials later reported that two tourists climbed up a ladder 500 feet to report the incident.
Shortly after first responders arrived, the rescuers and mine staff were able to bring the elevator up. Once the elevator surfaced, they found out that Weier had passed away and four of the surviving 11 had sustained minor injuries.
But now that the elevator had malfunctioned, the safety of the elevator was put into question. The emergency crews now had to determine the best method to safely remove the remaining 12 people that were left at the bottom of the 1,000-foot mine.
According to two people that spoke with local news crews, even though they were stuck in the mine, the company’s tour guide with them made the experience less terrifying. The emergency crews made sure not to give details to the tourists who were stuck and just told them that they were waiting for an elevator malfunction to be resolved
The two people stuck told news stations that their guide tried to distract them by taking them on the same mine tour multiple times. He also reassured them that he could get them out, even if they had to take the secret trek out of the mine. This route spans around eight miles and involves climbing up several ladders and going through multiple other mines.
After getting reports from local, state and federal officials, the sheriff authorized the retrieval of the stranded people just after 6 p.m. They ran the elevator down and up empty first before they rescued the people stuck at the bottom by bringing them up four at a time.
The next day, officials at the Mollie Kathleen Mine said that the tourist attraction would be closed until further notice.
The Mollie Kathleen Mine has been regarded as one of the area’s top tourist attractions for decades. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, an effort even was launched by city officials, tour operators and the CC&V mine to develop this site into a Williamsburg-like historic attractions, showcasing the region’s gold rush era like never before. This plan, though, never quite materialized due to some opposition in the community, and the extent of the potential costs and ownership changes at the CC/V mine. However, at the time it emerged as one of the community’s more ambitious bids to become a heritage tourism destination.