Photo courtesy of Keweenaw County Sheriff’s Office Keweenaw Search and Rescue and Sheriff's Office personnel studied ways to conduct first response and emergency situations in mines.

KEWEENAW COUNTY – Members of the Keweenaw Search and Rescue, along with the Keweenaw County Sheriff’s Office, were recent guests of the Delaware Mine, in Grant Township.

Lauri and Bob Sullivan, owners of the mine, provided the opportunity to tour the mine as part of ongoing training efforts focused on mine safety and mine rescue awareness.

“We been talking about this for a couple of years,” said Sheriff Curt Pennala. “Heaven forbid something happened with a medical call in the mine, or some other event.”

Pennala said the opportunity allowed for personnel to study the openings, angles and pitches of the shafts and trails, in order to formulate ideas for emergency rescue.

“So, that’s kind of what we were working towards,” Pennala said. “We set up a tour of the mine with both the Sheriff’s Office and Search and Rescue personnel. We went over different extraction models in the event in the event of a reason someone had to be removed from the mine.”

Among the scenarios they studied were the necessity of having remove someone from the mine on a backboard or a stretcher, and the safest ways to accomplish that for all involved.

‘It’s just good to have a plan in place in case something like that happens,” he said. They also looked at mine safety.

The Delaware offered an excellent classroom for it, said Pennala, particularly when considering the numbers of open shafts and sinkholes throughout the county.

“This goes for any mine if there happened to be some type of collapse or anything like that,” he said. “How would would we go about getting someone out of that?.”

Pennala said his office has received related calls in the past. “Throughout the years, we’ve had different calls regarding people getting stuck in mines, as well as trespassing and whatnot,” he said. “It’s good to just be prepared. We’re sitting on ground that’s got holes and tunnels all over beneath it.”

Pennala said response calls have been for people who wound up in places they never should have gone.

“If somebody gets in a wrong spot, or works themselves into the wrong hole, or whatever, it could be bad challenge.”

Pennala said he deeply appreciates the Sullivans allowing a tour of that type of their mine.

“They were so gracious to open their doors for us.”