Man speaks about fall into abandoned mine

Pat Kautzman knows he is lucky to be alive after being rescued from the abandoned mine shaft he fell into earlier this week.
 
"I knew I had to keep my cool or I would never make it out of there," said Kautzman, who winters here in Yuma. "I don't understand how I'm still here. I lived through it. There can't be as many people out there who were as fortunate as I was."
 
While there are too many people to name, Kautzman said he can't even begin to tell his rescuers from the Yuma County Sheriff's Office, Tri-Valley Ambulance and the MCAS Yuma range wardens who helped pull him from the mine shaft that day how thankful he truly is.
 
"Words can't describe how much I appreciate what they did for me. I have never before been that close to the door of death."
 
Now that his 2-1/2 hour ordeal is over, Kautzman said he wanted to tell his story in hopes it will prevent people from doing something "as stupid as I did."
 
"I don't ever want someone to have to go through what I did."
 
The accident happened Tuesday when Kautzman and his wife, along with two other couples, were out spending a day in the desert.
 
They eventually wound up at the Betty Lee Mine, which is located about 20 miles south of Tacna near Avenue 40 on the Barry M. Goldwater Range.
 
"I have been to a lot of mines, but this is the first one that I have ever gone into. I can guarantee I will never go anywhere near another mine again."
 
Kautzman said the mine is about two-thirds of the way up the side of a mountain. When they got there, they all parked their vehicles at the base of the mountain and he and a friend, Rusty Moyer, walked up a path to the mine.
 
"I should never have gone in there but I did," Kautzman said.
 
It was then that Kautzman said he made the horrible mistake of walking into the mine, which was worked for minerals intermittently from the early 1910s through 1939.
 
"I was following the tracks of the ore car, but kept going after the tracks stopped. I stepped on a board that was covering the shaft and went straight through the board."
 
Kautzman said Moyer was watching him through a camera and was going to snap his picture when he made it to the back of the mine.
 
"He saw me through his camera disappear in a plume of dust. (Moyer) is still having trouble dealing with seeing that."
 
As he fell, Kautzman said, he somehow got turned, possibly after hitting the side, and partially landed on his butt on a plank about 15 feet down the shaft.
 
From there he was able to scoot over to the corner of the shaft and grab hold of a spike on another support beam with his left hand and to prop one of his legs against the opposite side of the shaft.
 
"I could fell the blood running down both my arms. I was hanging on for dear life. Had I passed that point, it would have been a 100-foot fall to the bottom. I doubt they would have found my body."
 
He added, "I could still hear gravel falling to the bottom so I knew I was a long way down."
 
Kautzman said Moyer yelled into the mine to see if he was still alive and what he needed to do to help.
 
"I told him I was hung up on something and was OK at the moment. And to call 911."
 
Sheriff's deputies, the sheriff's search and rescue team and Tri-Valley Ambulance responded to that call about 11:20 a.m.
 
About half an hour later, after all the dust settled, Moyer went into the mine and, using the light from his camera, took pictures trying to assess the situation.
 
By this time Moyer's mother-in-law had made it to the top and was relaying information back down to the others.
 
Moyer's wife, Nancy, fell and broke her right arm and thumb running back down the trail to the vehicles to get a tow rope that they used to secure Kautzman until rescuers arrived.
 
"She had just bought a 20-foot tow rope the day before," Kautzman said. "The one I had was only 12 feet long, so it would never have reached me.  Had she not bought that, they wouldn't have been able to secure me."
 
Moyer tied one end of the tow rope to a piling and dropped the other end down to Kautzman, who tied it around himself.
 
That is how Kautzman said he remained for the until rescuers pulled him from the shaft at 1:45 p.m.
 
"Those 2-1/2 hours seemed like an eternity. That is a long time to be sitting alone in the dark. I saw my life flash before my eyes."
 
Kautzman, who was checked out by paramedics at the scene, only suffered minor injuries in the ordeal.
 
"When he walked out I gave him a big hug," Gloria Kautzman said.
 
Ironically, after all he had been through, range wardens also wrote Kautzman a $75 ticket for trespassing.
 
According to the permits visitors purchase to visit the range, it is considered trespassing to enter a mine.
 
The range warden who issued Kautzman the ticket called him at home two days later to see how he was doing.

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James Gilbert can be reached at jgilbertr@yumasun.com or 539-6854.