The some 3,000 mines in San Bernardino County attract adventurers. YouTube videos and Facebook pages are devoted to rappelling in and exploring their shafts. Website authors wax nostalgic about the hunt for gold and silver deposits in the 1800s.
But these same mines, mostly now abandoned, pose a high risk for thrill seekers.
Two such men were pulled uninjured from an abandoned, 250-foot vertical mineshaft near Twentynine Palms on Saturday, April 19, by San Bernardino County Fire Department crews that are trained to rescue victims of earthquakes, cave-ins and other disasters.
The men had rappelled to the bottom but couldn’t ascend when their equipment failed, said Eric Sherwin, a Fire Department spokesman.
Sherwin has himself trained in a mine shaft that extended a mile and a half vertically and horizontally, and on Thursday, he romanticized the experience.
“To think of the history that existed in this county, and the rough cut shoring that keeps them in place and how these structures were created over a hundred years ago with tools that are much less developed than they are today, it was commercial mining with hand tools and dynamite,” Sherwin said.
“It sounds very exciting,” Sherwin continued, “but I have to put in that cautionary tale that this is not an endeavor to be taken lightly. What kept this from turning into a tragedy (Saturday) was their approach. … They realized pretty early that this thing isn’t going to work and we are going to need help.”
The San Bernardino County Fire Department lowers a firefighter into a mineshaft near Twentynine Palms on April 19, 2025. Firefighters were able to lift the rappellers to safety. (Courtesy of San Bernardino County Fire Department)The trapped men shouted up to a third person stationed outside the mine. At 250 feet, Sherwin said, most radios and cellphones are useless.
Search-and-rescue teams from Fontana, Lake Arrowhead and the community of Oak Hills north of the Cajon Pass assembled within 90 minutes about three miles from the mine, Shawn Millerick, another department spokesman, said in a video posted to X. Their equipment had to be driven in on off-road vehicles.
Firefighters lowered water to the men and determined that the air was safe to breathe. A rescuer rappelled to the bottom, affixed his harness to the men one at a time and firefighters using a rope-and-pulley system lifted them out.
Rescues from mines are common in San Bernardino County, Sherwin said.
Some people are injured when driving an off-road vehicle over the open desert and do not see the shaft until it’s too late. Others use their cellphone flashlights for illumination inside a horizontal entrance but fail to notice the shaft, and they fall in. Sherwin cautioned against entering abandoned mines because they could be poorly maintained and collapse, or the mines could lack oxygen.
“They are very easily accessible. People are curious,” Sherwin said. “Summer months, when it’s 107 degrees out in Barstow and you go inside those mines when it’s 67 degrees 12 months out of the year, is a fun summer activity. But there is zero light.”
Related Articles
Dog seen in viral video getting thrown in Long Beach is rescued, man arrested, police say 2 arrested on suspicion of stealing nearly $4 million worth of items from San Fernando Valley storage facilities Trump’s transportation officials buck a long-held practice of using ‘road diets’ to slow speeders Molten material from idle SCE tower triggered Eaton fire, attorney alleges Judge orders LA County to depopulate Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( 2 rappellers rescued from 250-foot mine shaft in San Bernardino County )
Also on site :