2 Safe After 30 Hours in Mine-Shaft ‘Hell’

After being trapped in a fiery, deserted gold mine near Mojave for nearly 30 hours, two men Friday walked out of the mine shaft, dust-covered and thirsty but unhurt.

“I thought we were in hell,” said Douglas Wade Hampton of Reseda. “I thought this is what it would be like.”

Hampton, 30, said he and Adam Wayne Meyers, 23, of Woodland Hills had ventured into the abandoned mine on Silver Queen Road, two miles south of Mojave, about noon Thursday, when they heard a loud explosion and saw a fire break out at the mine’s entrance.

The men ran farther into the 26-mile, pitch-black mine to escape the flames, narrowly avoiding a roof cave-in along the way, Hampton said.

“Smoke started filling up the cave, and that’s when we started to get worried,” Hampton said. They found a spot deep in the mine shaft that had fresh air--but that turned into a chilling wind as night fell.

Clothed only in shorts and tennis shoes, the two, who have been good friends for 15 years, huddled close for warmth and tried to sleep to escape their mounting panic.

“We were so cold we hugged each other for 20 hours straight,” Hampton said. “We stole embers from the fire so that we could keep warm.”

Hampton said he sent telepathic messages to his wife and worried that he would never get to see the baby she is expecting in eight weeks. Yet, he said, being with a longtime friend kept him from letting panic overtake him. “If I had been there with anybody else, I wouldn’t have gotten out,” Hampton said.

Earlier Friday morning, the families of the two men--who had taken a trip into the desert to run Meyers’ four-wheel truck--filed a missing persons report, Kern County Sheriffs’ Deputy Richard Dixon said.

Meanwhile, Dixon said, a passer-by reported the mine fire to county firefighters. The firefighters found a pickup truck registered to Meyers at the entrance of the burning mine and determined that the men were trapped inside.

Members of a search and rescue team, wearing special breathing apparatus, ventured into the mine about noon Friday, but were unable to locate the men, Dixon said. A later attempt by the 10-man search team also proved unsuccessful.

The rescuers, however, left flares in the front and middle sections of the mine, which later served to guide the men. The pair had found a rope and tied it around each other to avoid falling into the deep shafts dotting the mine’s floor, Hampton said.

By 3:30 p.m. Friday, the fire was partly extinguished. “Laughing and crying,” Dixon said, the men ventured out on their own about 5 p.m. and were reunited with family and friends.

“When we got out, our friends were yelling, ‘We knew you guys were alive, so we brought six-packs and food!’ ” Hampton said.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.