The new California gold rush - Darwin style
Look for more stories like this one (hat tip LuLu) as more bold young men in the Western U.S. find it increasingly difficult to sit idly by and watch the price of gold continue to climb back toward $1,000 an ounce.
3 Die Trying To Re-Open Abandoned Gold Rush Mine
O'NEALS, Calif. (AP) ? Three men are dead after trying to reopen an abandoned Gold Rush-era mine in Madera County to dig for gold.
Twenty-five-year-old David Alan Alison and 23-year-old Matthew Terry Alison -- both from Prather -- and 26-year-old Brannon David Scharf of Madera were found dead inside the 20-foot-deep mine during the weekend.
Cal Fire officials say the men were using a gasoline-powered pump to drain underground water from the mine in O'Neals, about 20 miles south of Oakhurst.
Authorities are doing autopsies to determine the cause of death. A Cal Fire spokeswoman says it had a high level of carbon monoxide and little oxygen.
For those of you not familiar with the area, Oakhurst is at southernmost end of historic Route 49 that saw thousands and thousands of twenty-somethings travel its length about 150 years ago in search of the yellow metal.
For those of you not familiar with the Darwin Awards, they "commemorate individuals who protect our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives. Darwin Award winners eliminate themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner, thereby improving our species' chances of long-term survival."
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