Real Survival Stories - Mineshaft Accident: Digging for Gold, Encircled by Rattlesnakes

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

They call it ‘gold fever’ and John Waddell has got it bad. In 2018, the Arizona prospector takes his life in his hands when he explores an ancient, abandoned gold mine. His curiosity leads him deep underground and into a life or death struggle. Stuck 100 feet down the shaft, will anyone find him before it’s too late? And as the daylight fades, what unseen dangers lurk in the darkness? A Noiser production, written by Susan Allott. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started with a 7-day free trial. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's in this McDonald's bag? The McValue Meal. For $5.79 plus tax, you can get your choice of Junior Chicken, McDouble, or Chicken Snack Wrap, plus small fries and a small fountain drink. So pick up a McValue Meal today at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. Prices exclude delivery. It's October the 16th, 2018, in Arizona, USA. John Waddell lies on his back in the dark, struggling to breathe. Dust and dirt fill his lungs. The 60-year-old peers up to the only source of light,

the narrow opening of the mineshaft a hundred feet above him, a hole he fell through. From watching the small square of sky, he can tell the sun is fading. It's late afternoon. He can barely make out the floor around him. It's a cramped space, maybe eight feet in diameter. Pretty soon he'll be plunged into total darkness. John tries to keep calm, to manage the pain that courses through his body. He has no water with him. That's one of the many decisions he now regrets. In his condition, there's surely no way

he can escape this mineshaft single-handedly. His only hope is to be rescued. But will anyone come looking for him? And if they do, will they locate him before he succumbs to his injuries? He has to believe it's possible. Suddenly, John feels a movement against his body. Something cool and muscular sliding past his skin.

He freezes, still as a statue, trying not to panic, as the snake slithers under his armpit. I didn't move. I tried not to breathe, because anything could set this snake off. And I could hear the rattling, and I just kind of looked down a little bit, and I could see that it was a green Mojave, which is one of the deadliest rattlesnakes in the world. It was slithering underneath my arm. I just froze.

Mojaves are aggressive creatures. Light green in color, their heads are broader than those of more common Arizona Rattlers. John reckons this one is around five feet long. Green Mojaves have been known to chase people. If they get mad, they will try to attack you. They don't try to avoid you. It was probably about four inches in diameter. It was a very healthy snake.

John has to make a snap decision. Stay still and pray it will slither past him. Or try and kill it before it kills him. I felt the rattles rattling near my armpit. And I thought, I have nothing to lose. If I don't kill it now it could come back and get me later because if you don't kill them right the first time you won't get a second time. Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes?

If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives. In this episode, we meet John Woodell, a 60-year-old prospector from Arizona. He takes his life into his hands when he decides to explore an ancient, abandoned gold mine. His curiosity will lead him into a living nightmare, into the brink of despair. I lost track of how long I was actually down there and I was ready to go to heaven. I'm a religious man and when you lose hope, you don't want to go on anymore. Your body starts shutting down. Critically injured and with a

Mojave to deal with, any lingering hope is fading along with the daylight. Can anyone find him before it's too late? I'm John Hopkins from Noisa. This is Real Survival Stories. John Waddell is born and raised in Arizona. In his youth, he moves away and serves in the military. He gets married and has kids, settling in Colorado. But at home, things don't turn out great. By the late 1990s, John is middle-aged, divorced, and living alone.

He decides to return to his home state. He ends up in the small desert town of Wickenburg, Maricopa County, just north of Phoenix. Wickenburg, Arizona is known for the old wild west. The area is kind of hilly, a bunch of mountains, washes, saguaro cactuses that reach 20 feet tall. The surrounding area is just beautiful. The people in Wickenburg are good people. It's a retirement area in Arizona that a lot of people go to. But it's not just nostalgia and a quiet life that called her.

John is chasing a dream. The area is known for gold mines. A friend of mine had gone to Wickenburg every winter and he would come back with gold. And that's where it first caught my interest. Wickenburg is cowboy country, pioneer country. It's named after Henry Wickenburg, who, in the 1800s, hit pay dirt

to the tune of 340,000 ounces of gold. By the end of the 19th century, Wickenburg was a boom town. Wild stories were told about the fortunes that could be made, and the people who came to try their luck. A hundred years later, those tales still capture John's imagination. This part of Arizona is all arid desert with tall, stately cacti. Behind them, in the distance, low ranges of jagged peaks sit under wide blue skies. While suburbs and strip malls may have replaced the saloons and stagecoaches,

there are still some who do things the old way, working on the cattle ranches, riding on horseback through the mountain trails. And then there are those, like John, who still venture deep underground in search of gold. I said, someday I'm gonna be a miner. So when I got to Arizona, the first thing I did was buy a metal detector.

I was gonna go out and find all the gold there was. They call it gold fever, this craze for prospecting, and it catches hold of John. In the year 2000, he purchases a number of claims through the Bureau of Land Management. He now owns his own gold mine. He throws himself into the work, which gives him new focus and purpose. It's just what he needs. John's life has been hard. He's had to suffer more than his fair share of loss. My father had died back in 1971. I found him hanging in a barn that we had, and that was life-changing at the time. My mother, I met her one time, and I don't remember her.

When I finally got up the nerve to look her up, I had found out that she had passed away. My son Shane had committed suicide. My other son Matt, he was a drug addict, and he died of an overdose. I have left my daughter and two grandkids, and life was just rolling along. With all he's been through, the miner's lifestyle appeals to John. The long days underground, the challenge and the solitude of it. I loved it every minute of the day. In fact, I spent more time at the mine than I did at home because that was a passion. There was nothing else that I would

rather do because when you're mining, you never know what you're going to get around the corner. Or if you break out a rock and there's a big chunk of gold in it, That is the determination for going forward. There was always that hope that you would hit it rich. And that was where I was going to spend the rest of my life because I enjoyed what I do. And if you enjoy what you're doing, it's not work. And as far as i'm concerned i didn't work a day in my life it may not feel like work to john but gold mining requires back-breaking effort and nerves of steel anyone tells you that mining is easy they are sadly mistaking or they don't know what they're talking about. But it has been a very good experience for my life. The mine has kept me busy.

It has put money in my pocket. It paid the bills. And it was all mine. Before long, John has a license to explore half a dozen claims across 100 acres of land. They're all in the Aguila region, about an hour's drive from Wickenburg, and they're all accessed through mine shafts. Once underground, John uses dynamite to blast the rock, then picks through it looking for metal deposits in the mineral seams.

But by 2018, even after 20 fruitful years of prospecting, there is still one site on the property that he has yet to explore. Or rather, he hasn't dared to explore it. This mine is old, very old. It dates back to the early 18th century, predating even Henry Wickenburg's arrival in the area, back when all the region's riches were undiscovered. So this other shaft was just a different area. There are some old sections that were started back in the 1700s by the Spaniards.

And those areas are very weak with the supports in there. Even though I could see gold in the rock and very intriguing, but I did not want to cave in. So I left those areas alone, but it haunted me because I definitely wanted to get down there and get the gold. It is a fever and I had it at the worst case. The main shaft goes down a hundred feet below the surface before further tunnels descend even deeper into the earth. Cave-ins are a constant danger, and those ancient wooden supports will have weakened with age, damp, and rot. But it continues to play on John's mind.

Could this centuries-old spot be the one that makes his fortune? Gradually the itch becomes an idea and then a plan. John starts to recce the shaft, measuring its depth, working out the best way to tackle it. By October 2018, he's ready to take the plunge. Not knowing was killing me. So I decided that I was going to go down this mine shaft and see what was at the bottom of it. I had made a derrick, which was to hold my rigging as I repelled down the mine shaft. And I took my phone with me so that I could take pictures, and in case some kind of an accident.

John has thought it through. He's pretty well prepared. The trouble is, there's one golden rule which he's not willing to follow. In mining, you always have a rule. You always have someone along with you. I was always stubborn that way. I didn't work for anyone. I did all the work myself, which isn't always safe. I was very careful of what I did. Otherwise, you could lose your life in a matter of seconds. He sets the date, Monday, October the 15th. He does make one concession. He contacts his neighbor,

a man called Terry, just so someone knows where he's going. John gives Terry the location and tells him to come looking if he's not back by nightfall. I had told Terry Schrader that if I'm not home that night, there's something wrong and you need to come find me

because accidents do happen at the mine. The morning of October the 15th turns out to be cool and clear. The kind of day when everything feels good. It cements in John's mind that he's doing the right thing. Driving in his pickup, he turns off the highway and onto an off-road section. He takes in the Arizona landscape. The beautiful, rusty red desert rolls on for miles in every

direction. It had rained the night before, and the air was crisp. You could smell the cactus. You could smell the dirt. So on the way to the mine, I kept going over and over of how I'm going to get down this mine. I had bought some new rock climbing equipment, and I was bound and determined to go down it. John arrives at the mineshaft. He circles the opening, giving the derrick, the support structure he's erected, a final once-over. I was very comfortable. I was ready to go. My rigging was hooked to this derrick, which allowed me to repel down the mine shaft.

I was all set up. I checked my harness. Everything was good. He's all set to begin rappelling down the shaft. But looking into the darkness for a second, he questions his sanity. So I swung out over the top of the mine shaft, and I did have second thoughts. I grabbed hold of the side, sat down at the edge of it, and looked down and thought you've got to be nuts. But that quiet, cautionary voice does not win out. Instead, John checks his harness one more time, grips the rope, and steps out into the unknown. hundreds of top podcasts, offering host endorsements, or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn ads. Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com. John is suspended from the derrick at the top of the shaft.

Removing his feet from the edge, some loose stones and gravel tumble into the abyss, echoing away into the darkness. He leans back and feels his harness tighten. The derrick creaks above him as it takes his full weight. Satisfied everything is ship-shaped, John starts winching himself down. Bit by bit, he feeds rope through the spring-loaded gate of his carabiner. But then, just a few meters into the descent, his carabiner snaps. The rope is untethered, and in an instant,

John is in free fall, dropping like a stone. I was close to the edges. At one point, I hit an edge, which knocked me away from my rope. It was pitch black. I couldn't see anything. And I grabbed hold of the second rope that I had that I put there just for an emergency to get back out on. But even as he clutches at the backup safety rope,

John is still plunging through the darkness. He's falling at such speed that the rope tears the skin clean off his hands. You just want to let go, but I knew if I let go, I was going to die. So I kept hold of that rope, no matter how much it burned. The only thing that I thought of is just hanging on to the rope and I would have a soft landing, but that wasn't the case. John hurtles into the ground at the bottom of the mineshaft.

His legs buckle under the force and pain tears through his body. But he is alive. In the gloomy half-light, the air is thick with dust. John lets his eyes adapt and tries to breathe through the pain. But before he can make much sense of his situation, he hears a sound that all Arizonians dread. There was enough light shining down the mine shaft at 100 feet that I could see a couple of feet in front of me.

And as soon as I hid, I looked up and there's a rattlesnake about a foot away from my face. Its beady eyes are locked onto him. And now there are rattles echoing all around. There's more than one snake down here. It was terrifying. I was like frozen stiff and trying to gather my thoughts. I could see one rattlesnake moving and I could hear other ones close by. And I could hear them actually going across the brush

that was down there that was dumped. There was cans. I could hear them going through the cans, making a noise. And at this point, you're just scared stiff. You don't know what to do. You don't want to move. But yet, I had to do something, because if you get bit and you do not have medical attention, your chances of survival are zip.

John casts around for a makeshift weapon, slowly, avoiding sudden movements. Somebody had dumped a bunch of material, fencing, T-post, metal, and there was a stick. So I grabbed the stick and I beat the crap out of this rattlesnake. It's his fight or flight response. And flight isn't an option. When the snake is motionless, John lays down the metal fence post and catches his breath. But you can still hear the others

sliding through the debris. He must have landed in a nest. I mean, it was deafening. The sound from the rattles was so loud that it was hard to focus on anything. A rattlesnake bite left untreated will lead to internal hemorrhage and organ failure as the venom works its way through the body. You'd have about 30 minutes to make it to hospital. Down here he wouldn't stand a chance.

In the fading light, John tries again to take in his surroundings. He's landed in an opening about eight feet across. And that debris he can hear the snakes moving through, it's all around him. Beer cans, food wrappers, empty cigarette cartons. He sees now that his fall was broken by several 55 gallon steel drums that lie crumpled up nearby. He looks up at the sheer shaft above, eyes scanning for any possible route out. I could barely see the light now because the sun was shifting and I was looking up to find footholds to where maybe I could just pull myself up and out of the mine.

When I tried to pull myself up, I just couldn't do it. I could feel my legs separate. My ankle was just throbbing so bad. The weight and the friction from the burns on my hands were so bad. The skin was actually peeling off my hands, and I had blisters. I knew that I had a fracture of the femur, which is your upper bone in your leg,

and I was thinking I was going to bleed to death from the femur fracture. Trying to get a mindset and stay positive was dwindling very fast. John doesn't have any water on him either. Add dehydration to the list of hazards. But then he remembers. His phone. He can call for help. Fumbling in the darkness, John finds it in the back pocket of his jeans. He taps the screen carefully, brings it to life. He dials 911 and waits. But the call won't connect. No signal. He tries again and again, but is hopeless. He's

in the middle of the desert after all, and a hundred feet underground. So instead, he just yells at the top of his lungs. Throughout the whole day, I was yelling and yelling, and I yelled so much that I had lost my voice. And I was just hoping someone would want to come out to the mine or someone riding by on a horse would hear me screaming. John tries to reason with himself. Surely his neighbor, neighbor Terry will come looking for him soon But as the last daylight dwindles The prospect of a night surrounded by the rattlers looms The only thing that kept me going is hope that I would get out of there Because hope was fading very fast

And that first night was living hell. The pain and the fear of being bit by a rattlesnake, the odds were against me at this point. I was just in hopes that a miracle would happen. The hours creep by. In his youth, John had trained as an emergency medical technician, here in the mine shaft that experiences coming in useful. So a little bit of medical training went a long ways.

I knew my ankle was in bad shape. I was in hopes that the swelling would go down after this amount of time, but I got to thinking if the swelling goes down, your bones will get loose. It was actually the swelling in my leg, even though it was painful, the swelling kept my leg in place from moving and doing more damage because you have an artery that runs through your femur bone. And if I moved the wrong way, I could sever that artery and then you're just done with finally pale light of daybreak appears at the top of the shaft John is weak with thirst and hunger but still conscious with visibility returning now he thinks back over the survival techniques he learned as a child growing up in Arizona.

Back in the 60s and 70s, you can take a handful of that wet dirt, put it in like your shirt, and suck on the dirt. That way you're not getting any rocks or anything else other than just the moisture. John lifts up the rocks around him, searching for even a trace amount of morning dew. But the earth down here is covered with a white, chalky filth, bat guano.

That is, bat excrement. But he does find something else. As he lifts one guano-covered stone, a metallic glint catches his eye. There is gold down here, after all. I did find some rocks down there that had gold in it. I was finding quite a bit of gold in the rock at the bottom of this mine shaft. My trip down there wasn't a total waste. At least I found what I was looking for.

It's a turning point, a moment of joy in the nightmare. John vows to survive and to return. I made a commitment to myself that if I ever got out of there alive, I would be back. With renewed energy, John tries calling for help again, but to no avail. Then, as he leans back against the wall, he feels an unmistakable, muscular movement against his body. A snake is slithering right under his arm. This one is a green Mojave.

John makes a split-second decision. I thought, I have nothing to lose. So I grabbed this rattlesnake by the back end, and I swung this thing up against the side on the ground. I bet I spent 10 minutes slamming this rattlesnake on the side of the wall, on the ground. And when I was done, I threw it in the corner or away from me. But even if this snake can no longer hurt him, what about all the others, coiled up in the shadows, waiting to strike? And I had no idea how many were still going to come.

So I was never relaxed enough to where I could take a deep breath and just calm down. At any moment, he could feel the bite that spells his end. But as the second afternoon drifts towards evening, John's fear is actually turning to desperation. Everything hinges on Terry coming to the rescue. But where is he? He should have been here last night. That's what they'd agreed. There must be a good reason for the no show. I was actually giving up. I knew at that point that Terry would not show up and that I could possibly die down there. Because if Terry had been in an accident or something happened to him and he was in the hospital, I would never get out of there. Soon, the light is gone and John is plunged back into darkness. He focuses his mind on his daughter and his grandchildren, on how he wishes he saw them more often, and how much he'd like to see them again.

You never want to give up. And the will to live was, I wanted to see my daughter, my grandkids, and go on with life. The second night in the mine is another long and sleepless one. But as morning breaks, John can feel himself slipping away. He's severely dehydrated now, and that internal bleeding in his leg

has continued unchecked. He's lost track of time. As day three stretches on, he starts hallucinating. I was looking up and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel and as I lay there I saw like this black cloud that was coming down the mine shaft. And I couldn't understand what it was. And I saw figures of like animals coming out of this black cloud that was lowering down to myself and these animals were like squirrels i saw a horse and when it got down to like it was maybe 20 feet away from me I just closed my eyes because I almost thought

maybe it's a grim reaper. I had never been in that position before. And I have heard in the past that the grim reaper will come get you just before you die or as you're dying. Suddenly, John is wrenched back into consciousness as he hears that dreaded sound again. The rattle is loud this time, right next to him. Acting on instinct, John grabs another piece of metal

and battles this latest intruder away. When you're that afraid of something, it's like an out-of-body experience. You just, you keep going until you know that the fear is no longer there. The surge of adrenaline reanimates John, but only for a moment. As the wave of energy subsides, he's drained of strength. I had given up hope. I had given up everything. I was ready to go to heaven.

I'm a religious man, and I just laid myself down, and I could actually feel like I was leaving my body. It's a bad feeling. And I saw my kids, my daughter, my grandkids, my father. I saw them all. You should never lose hope. But I had given up. And I could feel my body just totally relaxed. I didn't feel pain.

I didn't care about the rattlesnakes. I just wanted it to be over with. And as I was laying there just drifting off, I thought I was going to heaven, and I accepted that. John hears his name being called, but it's a voice from far away, like in a dream. I heard somebody yelling, John, John, are you down there?

And I thought I was just hearing things, because at this point, I didn't want to go back. I felt like I was almost in heaven. And it was peaceful. It was calm. There was no pain. Then he hears it again, clearer now. It's coming from above, from the surface. I could hear it again, and when I realized that it was Terry at the top of the mine shaft,

I broke down crying. I cried like a little baby, because I knew I was getting out of there, but yet I didn't want to. I wanted to go to heaven. I was almost there. . There are more noises at the top of the shaft now, and then the squeak of a pulley as something

is lowered down towards him. Out of the darkness, a bucket appears with a jug of water inside. John hauls himself up into a sitting position and drinks. I think I went through four little jugs of water in a matter of about two or three minutes. I was trying to get as much water in me as I could.

Revived now, he hears Terry call down again. He's telling John to put his phone into the bucket. He needs it to call 911. John does what he's asked. He watches the bucket vanish up the shaft. He sits and waits.

And slowly, he feels hope returning. So during the time that I'm waiting to actually be rescued, a lot of things went through my mind. And I was definitely ready to get out. I wanted to live. I wanted to see what life has in store for me. I was ready to get out of there and then I could hear helicopters flying overhead and there was probably two or three of them because you could hear the different pitches from the helicopters. Soon more voices are calling out,

and searchlights are shining down from above. Next thing I heard is the Sheriff's Department, the rescue guys, the paramedics, were up on the top. And they were still sending water down to me, trying to get some water in me. I was so dehydrated that it was, yeah, wasn't quick enough. I couldn't get enough water into me at that point.

So the paramedics and the search and rescue from Maricopa County repelled down to the bottom of the shaft. John is so dehydrated that the paramedics can't find a vein for the IV drip. They have to move him without pain relief. But he's just happy to be on his way back up to the world. It took them almost six hours to get me out of there. I could hear all the commotion on the top.

People were yelling. And by this time, it was dark. And I got up close to the top, and I could feel the fresh air. Because down inside the mine, there was no fresh air. It was stale. It just wasn't good. So it was really nice to smell fresh air and feel it on my body. The night sky sprawls above him.

After three long days, the nightmare is over. Airlifted to hospital, John will undergo multiple surgeries. They put a new knee in my left leg because the knee was totally destroyed. Just about every bone in my ankle was broke. My left femur was broke. I had cervical fractures from hitting the ground so hard. I had compression fractures in my spine, which I still feel today. There's nothing they could do about those. So there was no surgery done on that. That I still live with, I deal with day to day.

After being discharged from hospital, John continues rehabbing at home as the weeks go by he can't stop thinking about the mine in spite of everything he's still haunted by the image of that gold sparkling in the darkness and so when his body is strong enough John does exactly what he promised himself he would do. He goes back to the mine shaft. I did go back out to the mine. And I looked down that shaft that I almost died in, thinking that I would never, ever do that again.

But then I actually wanted to. I wanted to do it again and see what I didn't see down there in the dark. This time it would be light. Perhaps it's like getting back on a horse after a fall, a refusal to be defined by his traumatic experience Or perhaps it's the stubborn grip of the gold fever Either way, John finds himself standing by the derrick once more At the cusp of the hole in the earth

As he did last time, he hears that quiet voice of reason. This time he listens to it. He steps away from the shaft, packs up his equipment, and drives home. It got the better of me. Now I'll just let someone else take over the mine because I've had enough of it. And I finally come to terms that it's not my cup of tea. It was time to move on to something safer. Finding gold has been his passion for so many years.

But now John lets it go. And in his place, he finds more time and space for the people in his life. While I was down there, I was in hopes that I'd see my family again, be able to play with my grandkids. That was all motivation now that keeps me continuing on. I have spent a lot of time with my daughter and my grandkids, more time than what I used to before the accident. My daughter lives about an hour away, which is really nice. We can see each other a lot more than what we have because the distance was a big factor. And I never really had the opportunity during the day

to just break away and go see her, which I do now. And I enjoy every minute of it. Life is good. In the next episode, we meet Ed Rosenthal. He's a 64-year-old Los Angeles real estate broker and a keen hiker. But one afternoon in 2010, a small lapse in concentration on his favorite route nearly costs him his life. One wrong turn sends Ed on a mind-altering march across Joshua Tree National Park as he is drawn deeper and deeper into the desert. Ultimately, he will be forced to answer a terrifying question. In stumbling ever onwards, is he getting any closer to salvation? Or is he just going around in circles? That's next time on Real Survival Stories. You can listen to Ed's story right now by subscribing to Noisa Plus.

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