Posted on 09/02/2007 4:36:36 PM PDT by Issaquahking
One Girl Dead, One Injured After Falling In Arizona Mine Shaft, Two girls riding an all-terrain vehicle fell into a mine shaft, killing one while the other remained trapped overnight, authorities said Sunday.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
When I was 9 I fell into a mime shaft but wasn’t sure how to ask for help.
Poor kid. May she rest in peace.
The 10-year-old girl was being treated for serious injuries.
Seth Johnson, a neighbor of the girls and their family’s landlord, said the two were half-sisters and identified them as 13-year-old Rikki Howard and 10-year-old Casie Hicks.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_6787113
Unlike many stories where fault is nebulous, someone can be blamed here. Al Gore. He advised Bill Clinton to shut down the US Bureau of Mines that was involved in documenting and closing old and dangerous shafts and addits when the plug was pulled.
There’s 10’s of thousands of open mineshafts all over the west.
Some of them go down for a thousand feet or more.
Folks oughta look where they’re going.
After being born and raised in LA I went to live in a tiny copper mining town in Arizona after graduating from school. I worked on the White River Apache Reservation.
But one think that totally wigged me out was the hug holes that were left from some sort of mining in the area. Big enough for a moving van to drive into .... no barriers, nothing! You just walk right up to the edge. There is no way to see the bottom of the shaft. It just scared the living daylights out of me!!!
That, along with tarantulas, snakes, javalinas, gila monsters and bats ... and all sorts of weird bugs and beetles.
Thank you. I was talking about that on #11.
They are not maked at all.
Was that going to be a picture of a collie, by any chance?
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise. -- Tacitus
Marking hazards such as open mine shafts on public property is not a barrier to great and noble enterprises.
Let’s see - should I hit the abuse button on your post, or just call you a jerk.
Let me think about it for a while.
Agreed. It should be the responsibility of mine operators. Where none or no related corporations exist, then the BoM should have responsibility for such. And SpaceBar has pointed out already that we should go after Algore.
However, the idea that all things must be safe is a dangerous path.
Unfortunately, a lot of vertical shafts were covered with boards when they were abandoned. The wood rots, and is covered with a thick layer of dust, so you have no idea that it is there at all, then whoop!
I was out with a mine expert and we saw a horizontal shaft interesting enough to want to poke your head in and look around, though it was pitch black inside. But he skipped a rock inside, and after it bounced once there was silence. For a few seconds, then plink...plink...plink, as it fell down the vertical shaft perhaps 15 feet from the horizontal front entrance.
Even spelunkers are wise to avoid old mines. As the saying goes, “Any cave nature didn’t create, nature tries to destroy.” On top of which you have poisonous and explosive odorless gases, rotten timbers, rock falls, just roof rocks you can bash your head in with if you aren’t wearing a helmet, explosive nitroglycerin crystals from old leaky dynamite, animals and insects, and unexpected water and sometimes a lot of it all at once.
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