“Don't Look Down!”

Below the trapped miners was an empty elevator shaft, 2,000 feet deep. Only the extraordinary strength of one man might save them

- John Dyson

Cradling his hard hat and bag of sandwiches, Mario Cockrell sprinted for the elevator and shoved his way among the miners jammed inside. Many of them grumbled at him: “Late again!” The doors slammed shut, signal bells rang and the cramped, two-level cage began a 16-minute, 1.6-km-long descent into the President Steyn gold mine in Welkom, South Africa. It was 8:15 p.m. on 23 March 1993.

Known as the ‘Mary Ann,’ the passenger elevator carried 21 men this trip, its bare aluminium interior lit only by their cap lamps. For nearly 10 minutes the ride went smoothly. Then, suddenly, the elevator cage lurched and stopped dead.

Rassie Erasmus, the Mary Ann’s silver-haired attendant, was unworried. “Hold still,” Mario heard him say. “She’ll move in a minute.”

Mario wasn’t so sure. He heard a strange slapping sound from the darkness overhead. Then it hit him. Great coils of heavy steel-wire rope were piling up on the elevator roof. The huge winch that had been lowering the cage was still running!

We’re in trouble, thought Mario. Something had blocked the cage’s descent, and whatever had snagged it could give way at any moment. The cable heaping on the roof, even a vibration from the men inside, could nudge the 2.4-ton cage into free fall. The slack wire would snap as it was jerked tight. Nothing then would stop them from plunging 2,000 feet to the bottom—the height of two Eiffel Towers.

Mario shouldered Rassie aside to reach the door. “We’ve got to get out,” he said.

“We’re Going to Die”