Associated Press
IRON RIDGE, Wis. — Searchers located three teenage boys on Monday that they had feared gotten lost in a labyrinthine abandoned mine in Wisconsin.
The boys — Tate Rose and Zachary Heron, both 16, and 15-year-old Samuel Lein — had last been seen Sunday, and Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt said their bikes were found off a road near an entrance to the mine.
The sheriff announced in a two-sentence email on Monday afternoon that the boys had been located after a search that involved 100 people, dogs and thermal imaging. But Schmidt offered no other information about the boys being found.
Sheriff’s office communications director Christine Churchill said in a separate email that the boys were safe and a news release would come later Monday. She didn’t immediately respond to a follow-up message asking where the boys were located.
Searchers had concentrated their efforts on the mine, which Schmidt described as a “vast maze” of interconnected tunnels that goes on for 4 miles.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee owns the mines. University officials estimate 100,000 bats live in the mine, which is among the Midwest’s largest winter shelters for bats.