** Lost Gold At The Dead Man's Mine ** A Miners Journal **

[Mike Furness]

Let's hope Conor's turn around sticks!

[GhostMiner]

Here's one for Jacob. Thinking of you tonight my old friend and mining partner.

 

 

[GhostMiner]

On 1/26/2024 at 3:56 PM, Mike Furness said:

Let's hope Conor's turn around sticks!

Yes, he's been all over the place but mostly unreliable. Can he change? Read on.

[GhostMiner]

  August 17   2002     Part Two

 

   By early afternoon Jacob wanted to get the trommel running and start washing gravels. He figured we could salvage a half day of work. To my surprise Bill and Conor asked if they could work with us. Jacob gave them one of his winks and said you guys look like you might be cut out for a mining crew. Then we walked over to the digsite.

   I took Conor over to the water pump and showed him how to purge the line and get it pumping. The trommel was running and Jacob was starting to feed the hopper. I showed Conor and Bill how the controls worked and how to shut it down. Then I gave each one of them a short tutorial on how to operate a skid steer. Conor started pushing tailings. Bill got in the excavator with Jacob and was watching him use the controls. Then he did a little digging. 

   We ended up knocking off work around 6:00 PM after having processed 90 yards of gravel. Jacob said we would run a full day tomorrow and then do the cleanup. Overall, it was a fairly quiet day with no drama. The cool night air was starting to come in around 7:00 PM and we all had a good supper together. Then we all hit the sack early in preparation for a long day of mining.

   TO BE CONTINUED .................

[GhostMiner]

   August 18   2002     Part One     Man Down

 

   Everyone was up bright and early. We were all on the same page and ready for mining gold. Also, Bill resumed metal detecting up at the Hidden Mine. Conor was helping out at the dig site by pushing tailings with the skid steer while Jacob started digging and I got the trommel and pump running. 

   It was a beautiful morning and things were running smoothly until around 10:00 AM when my walkie talkie went off. It was Bill and he was in trouble. He said he was in a ravine on the east side of the Hidden Mine site. He had taken a bad fall and couldn’t get up. 

   I hollered over to Conor and went over to Jacob and told him what had happened. We quickly shut down the operation and Conor and I charged up the mountain heading in Bill’s direction. Jacob stayed down at camp and waited on word from us.

   When we got up there we headed over to the east side of the old mine where the ground dropped off sharply. There, near the bottom about 100 feet below us was Bill. I hollered down and told him we were coming. The terrain was extremely rough and strewn with large boulders and old mine tailings. The sides of the ravine were steep. When we got down to Bill I could see it was bad. His right leg was fractured and he was also having trouble breathing. I was thinking he may have broken some ribs and punctured a lung. 

   He was in a lot of pain and it was impossible to get him back up to the surface. I was also afraid to move him without more help and equipment. I told Conor to climb back out of here and go for help and I would stay with Bill. This was a bad situation.

   TO BE CONTINUED .................

[GhostMiner]

  August 18   2002     Part Two

 

   It seemed like an eternity and finally after about an hour my walkie talkie came to life. Conor was bringing a rescue team up the mountain with medical personnel as well. He said they had an ambulance waiting at camp to transport to the nearest hospital which was at least an hour and a half away.

   I had been trying to comfort Bill as much as I could and was talking about all the gold we would get before Winter set in. It helped pass the time and take his mind off his injuries. Just as the rescue people arrived Bill started going into shock. I got out of their way and they went to work on him. Conor came over and was real concerned. They had started to become pretty good friends. I just shook my head and told him Bill was in good hands now.

   They fastened him on a litter and ran a line up to the top of the ravine. Then four men helped slide the litter up the side of the cliff with the help of some people up at the top pulling the rope along. It was a delicate operation and the team was being as gentle as they could. When they got him to the top they carried him all the way back to camp and placed him in the ambulance. Then they were off.

   A Sheriff deputy wanted a statement from us on the details of the accident so I told him what Bill had told me. It seems he had been swinging the detector just below the rim of the ravine and was moving laterally when he tripped over a skinny pine tree root that was just above the ground. It must have acted like a tripwire and Bill said he went tumbling down the steep wall of gravel and rock ending up all the way at the bottom. Bill said he had smacked hard into a boulder about half way down. The deputy wrote down what I was saying and headed back to town.

   Jacob was pretty upset and said we were done working for the day. We had washed 15 yards of gravel. None of us felt much like eating but Jacob heated up some canned stew and we all ate supper around 6:00 PM. I told Conor we should go into town and call the hospital tomorrow to see what was what. It was a bad day on the mine and we were reminded about how quickly tragedy could strike. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ..................

  

[GhostMiner]

Have been unable to log on to this site since last night. Finally got back on. Cheers.

[peterinaust]

Couldn't log on yesterday at all. Or early this morning, all good now.

[GhostMiner]

   August 19   2002     

 

   Conor and I headed into town this morning. We went to the Sheriff’s office and asked if anyone knew how Bill was doing. They said they didn't, so they let us use their phone to call the hospital. After waiting on hold for a good ten minutes I was finally able to talk with a nurse who worked on the floor where Bill was located. She said he had a punctured lung, broken left arm, a broken leg, a concussion, and multiple bruises. He had been stabilized and was going into surgery. She said his condition was very serious. I got the direct number to call about him and told her I'll check back tomorrow. 

   The deputy on duty said he was lucky to be alive after a fall like that. I agreed and Conor and I stopped by the store to pick up some supplies and headed back to camp. Nobody really felt much like working but we finally got back to washing gravel. Conor worked with us. He was taking a liking to operating the skid steer and doing pretty good. By the end of the day we had processed 150 yards of pay gravel. Jacob said we should run one more day before pulling the sluice mats for a cleanup. 

   It was near 7:00 PM when we finished eating supper and a deputy came walking into camp. It was the same one from yesterday who had come to the mine with the rescue crew. By the look on his face I knew it wasn’t good news. He came over to us and said he was very sorry to tell us that Bill didn’t make it. We were all stunned. Conor completely fell apart. I even saw a tear in Jacob’s eye. The deputy said they had contact information for one of Bill’s relatives and he would be taken care of. He said if we needed to know anything more we should come into the Sheriff’s department tomorrow afternoon. I thanked him and felt a wave of sorrow and also a creepy feeling come over me. I remembered Bill talking about the graveyard train sitting in the ravine near the upper drift mine. Bill had joined the miner who had also died out there. I asked myself how many more miners would die out here on this cursed property. It had claimed the lives of many good men. I didn’t want to be one of them. I felt like packing up and going home while I still had the chance. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ...............

[GhostMiner]

A song for Bill. Hope he finds that big strike up there.