Cripple Creek/Victor Communities Band Together Following Tragic Mine Accident

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 was a well-regarded member of the community, who recently had completed the Cripple Creek/Teller County fire academy and been trained as a volunteer firefighter. Scores of area residents described memorable experiences they experienced with the mine attraction victim in the last week. In addition, many great memories were re-lived by family members and friends during the community celebration in his honor on Oct. 17 at the Cripple Creek City Park. Weier’s passion for football and baseball, especially as a devoted fan of the Chicago Bears and Chicago Cubs, and his amazing qualities as a father, were showcased in detail. (See related story for coverage of this event).

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.

“Right now, OSHA is involved with the investigation and MSHAW our mine safety are working with our deputies on the investigation,” Mikesell said at a press conference the day after the incident. “Currently we don’t know what happened at 500 feet to cause this. That is something we are working through. I will tell you the owner of this mine and the family that has been behind this mine for many, many years have done a great job at making everything safe. They have put thousands and thousands of people down this mine for tours with very low safety concerns. But any time you are dealing with heavy machinery and 1,000 foot or 500-foot levels in a mine, there can be accidents. And this was a tragic accident.”
According to a recent press release by the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety, the attraction owners have been issued a cease-and-desist letter, forbidding them to reopen the Mollie Kathleen Mine until a further investigation of the accident is finalized. The tourist attraction was already slated for closure this season. At the same time, the agency didn’t raise any concerns about the attraction’s safety record, prior to the recent tragedy.  In fact, the most recent inspection of the mine took place on Aug. 29.
Reports, though, have varied regarding whether patrons got stuck inside the mine in the past.
Initially, the sheriff said that the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine had not had a safety issue since 1986. However, according to the KRDO television news station, two incidents occurred at the mine 30 years ago. But these never involved any fatalities.

“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.

No Wrongdoing
In a spree of interviews, the sheriff stressed the cooperation that occurred among a multitude of state and local agencies, area responders and by the family that owned the attraction. In a detailed interview on the national NBC news show, “Top Story,” with show co-anchor Ellison Barber, the sheriff continued to emphasize that this was a “tragic accident,” and didn’t believe any criminal charges or reports of wrongdoing would be filed.  He also was heavily complimentary of the actions taken by the Mollie Kathleen owners and operators to help resolve the situation.

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.

 The Mollie Kathleen, which has strong historical roots, continued to gain much acclaim and attention in recent years, especially with its location directly across from the Cripple Creek Heritage Center.