A gold prospector who survived nearly three days at the bottom of an abandoned rattlesnake-infested mine shaft in the Arizona desert says he had nearly lost all hope of being rescued.
John Waddell, 60, broke his left leg and ankle when the rigging he used to lower himself into the 30-metre shaft about 140 kilometres northwest of Phoenix broke on October 15.
He free-fell to the rocky bottom and saw that his left leg "was flopped up and my ankle was going the other way," according to Waddell.
He had a cellphone but no service. A flashlight that didn't provide light for very long. And no food or water.
Waddell said he killed three diamondback rattlesnakes with a stick before they could strike - including two the first day - and then hung on before he was finally rescued October 17 when a friend drove to the mine and heard his cries for help.
"If I stayed down there, I knew I was going to die," Waddell said on Sunday at a news conference at a Phoenix hospital where he's recovering from a broken femur and ankle. "I was scared. Just about all hope was gone."
When his rigging broke and he hit the bottom of the shaft, Waddell said he relied on some medical know-how and found a stick and set his broken leg and ankle.
But he soon had to take out the stick to beat two rattlesnakes to death, one about 30cm long and the other 60cm.
"Your survival mode kicks in. It was either me or them," Waddell said of the rattlesnakes. "It's a will to live."
He killed a third 90cm snake on Wednesday.
By then, Waddell said he was starting to hallucinate.
He popped blisters to get water into his mouth and sucked moisture out of his shirt so he could keep yelling and screaming for help.
Waddell said he thought he heard a truck drive up to the mine and someone calling out his first name.
It was his friend Terry Schrader who knew Waddell was going to attempt a descent into the mine and had agreed he would go look for Waddell if he didn't hear from him soon.
"I broke down. I knew I was going to get out of there," Waddell said. "I was just so thankful."
It took about three hours for rescue crews to lift Waddell to safety and then to a hospital for treatment.
Despite the harrowing mishap, he still intends to explore more mines.
"I've been doing this for 20 years," Waddell said. "It gets in your blood."
