DODGE COUNTY, WI (WTAQ) – Dodge County sheriff’s officials are happy to report that three teens who have been missing since Sunday afternoon have been found safe.
16-year-olds Tate Rose and Zachary Heron, along with 15-year-old Samuel Lein, were located just before 1 p.m. Monday. Authorities say they weren’t hurt, except for some scrapes and bruises.
According to Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt, one of the boys admitted that they went into the abandoned mine around 3 p.m. Sunday. The teens could not get out of the mine and spent the night sleeping in a cave. They were unable to contact anyone outside the cave, because the batteries in their cell phones had run out.
The boy also said, according to Schmidt, they were not playing a game on their smartphones. This was after some people in the community had asked if they were playing Pokémon Go, a game similar to a virtual scavenger hunt.
The boys were reported missing around 9:45 p.m. Sunday. Their bicycles were found near the cave, which led the search to focus on that area.
Several fire and rescue crews were called in to help in the search, from as far away as Appleton, Madison and Milwaukee.
The mine is owned by UW-Milwaukee, which conducts bat research at the site. Schmidt says for now charges aren’t being considered, even though they were trespassing at the mine.
