Oct. 19 (UPI) — Sheriff’s officials in Maricopa County, Ariz., rescued a man two days after he fell down a 100-foot-deep mine shift filled with rattlesnakes, law enforcement said.
Rescue crews pulled John Waddell, 62, up from the mine Wednesday near the town of Aguila. Waddell went down into the mine Monday, but fell into the shaft and injured his legs.
He was unable to pull himself back out of the mine, and found himself surrounded by rattlesnakes.
“The carabiner broke I guess, and he supposedly fell 40 to 50 feet,” his friend, Terry Shrader, told KNXV-TV.
Waddell told Shrader he was going down into the mine and asked him to check on him if he didn’t hear from him by Tuesday.
“Since he didn’t come home yesterday, I was bound determined to come out here today,” Shrader said.
It took rescuers 6 hours to lift Waddell from the mine, at which point they airlifted him to Banner-University Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.
