Enrique Mora, a recently retired man in Montclair CA, dug a 60-foot pit in his front yard because he was convinced he'd eventually strike gold. Neighbors complained and the fire department shut down the operation and ordered him to hire an engineer to fill the pit.
When firefighters pulled up at the home, workers were dumping paint cans brimming with dirt scraped from the bottom of the hole with a shovel and a pick ax. To pull the dirt out, Mora had devised a rope-and-pulley contraption with a plastic wheel and a metal rod.
The worker at the bottom of the crater had shimmied down, a rope tethered to a belt, and was sucking on a garden hose for oxygen, neighbors told the emergency responders.
