Mineshaft Story

Meaghan Ryan - Texas A&M

Experiences - Winner

It was the year before I got into vet school, my sister had just rescued a black pit bull/ lab mix and I was back home in Arizona with the family for the holidays. Arizona’s weather is usually the best in the winter so as a pretty active family we try to take full advantage of that, and do as many outdoor activities as possible, including hiking. One hike will always be instilled in my memory.

It wasn’t a very difficulty hike, just long and hard to get to, but what made it exciting were the old abandoned mines that you could explore up the mountain. We were ready for the adventure; setting out early it was my 2 brothers, sister, and her dog, Boogie. We were probably about two hours in, when we came across the first mine. We turned on our headlamps and proceeded to follow my oldest brother, David, as he led the way. The mine was structurally sound and went deep into the mountain. We finally got to a caved-in area that stopped any further progress. David was looking through a hole at the top of the caved-in area when we heard a distant low growl coming from the other wall. We all looked at each other and took off running. In this area, coyotes are not a rare thing, and we all thought it had to have been a coyotes den, and getting out of there was the best way to resolve that, especially with Boogie nearby.

Once back out of the mine, we followed the trail as it climbed the mountain. Switching back and forth along the way we came across a few more mines that were unsafe, with missing wooden planks framing the inside. One was particularly scary with a giant hole that just dropped straight down and a few wooden planks that lay over it. We decided to play it safe and continue up the mountain.

After a few minutes taking in the beautiful Arizona view of the Colorado River and the Mohave Mountains, we began our descent down. We passed all the same mines, Boogie getting a little tired kept close to our group. We passed the entrance of one of the mines and for no reason, Boogie decided to go into one. We called for her, but she did not come back out. Panic came across me, as I came to the realization that, this was the mine with the giant whole that dropped straight down. I ran into the mine and shouted for her, my brothers bravely walked across the plank over the hole and ran to the end of the mine to see if she was on the other side.

Nothing.

My heart sank as the realization that she had fallen straight down into this hole deep in the mountain and was now either dead from the drop or would be trapped forever, and there was absolutely nothing we could do. I tried shinning my light down it, but the angle of the drop showed no way of seeing the bottom. I kept calling her name and tried to keep my sister calm, when we heard faint noises coming from the bottom of the hole. I knew it was boogie alive, but she sounds so far away. My oldest brother said he was going to run back to our car, go home and get a ladder, rope or something to get her out. The second my brother took off down the mountain, we started to hear the same low rumbling growls from another animal that we heard earlier from the first mine we went in. Convinced it was the same coyote from earlier, I shouted to my brother what we heard and he decided to go back into the first mine where we first heard the coyote noise. My sister and I tried to keep each other’s composure as we kept calling Boogie's name, praying Boogie was not hurt from the fall, or attacked by the coyote.

Time went by and we started to hear my brother’s voice very faintly coming up from the bottom of the mineshaft. We shouted his name and he could hear us. David had gone all the way back into the first mine and proceded to remove the rocks that blocked the tunnel that had stopped us before. Boogie was standing just outside the area and David was able to squeeze his body enough to pull her out. We heard him yell that he got her so we took off down the mountain to the entrance of the first mine. My younger brother had carried her out of the mine and when we saw her, she was no longer black but a very dusty gray, but luckily had no significant injuries. My younger brother told us that David was still in the mine

cause there was something else still in there. Panic now for David’s safety started to set in as I finished my assessment of Boogies injuries. Just as I was about to run backing into the mine, David emerged carrying another dog. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

It was a very dirty, emaciated German Short Haired Pointer, but other then that was in pretty good health. The realization that the growl from what we heard early, was actually this poor dog that was also stuck down in the mineshaft. The dog had a collar around his neck with rabies tags from the local clinic. I called the number and the shelter was just in shock. They told me that the dogs name was Easton, and had been reported missing weeks ago. They called the owners and gave them my number to call back. We continued our hike back down the mountains, taking turns carrying Easton.

Within a few minutes, I received a call from the owner in shock, they could not believe it, they said their dog had fallen into the mine shaft 27 days ago, and they thought there was no hope in getting her. They didn’t know there was another mineshaft that connected 50ft below it and had just about given up hope. The owners met us at the trail head in disbelief and thankful. They told us that Easton was an excellent hunter and probably survived on rats and whatever it could get its mouth on. Not sure if we will ever know Boogie's intentions for leaving our side to go into that mine, but what we do know is both dogs got really lucky that day and if dogs had nine lives, these two have one less.

After going through this incident, I knew I was ready to help more animals in the future. I applied to vet school that next year and will always look back on this and remember what I went through and how helpless I felt. I never want to feel that helpless, but to help the less. Since then I have dedicated my vet school extracurricular involvement in Texas A&M's Veterinarian Emergency Response Team as well as the Vice President of our Emergency and Critical Care Student Organization.