Pennsylvania is coal country. There are numerous coal mines there, both of the deep shafts in the ground type and the huge pits on the surface type. Needless to say, mines of any type are dangerous places and you can easily get yourself killed by falling into one if you’re trespassing on mine property at 1am.

Apparently Nathan Bowman didn’t learn this lesson.

In a nutshell, Bowman was trespassing on company property in the middle of the night and fell into an inactive strip mine. It takes a certain kind of special to fall into a hole in the ground that’s 700′ deep, 3000′ long and 1500′ wide. And it takes a Homer Simpson kind of special to survive a fall like that, which included bouncing down a jagged slope and free-falling several hundred feet before landing on a ledge of rock near the bottom of the pit. (Watch episode 7F06 – Bart the Daredevil if you don’t understand the reference.)

Twenty-three year-old Nathan is that kind of special.

Amazingly, he was rescued by a team of firemen and police who were able to pluck him out of the pit.

A vice-president of the coal company that owns the mine said she thinks “the universe has bigger plans for Nathan. I hope he realizes that.”

I’m sure he will because those plans include being charged with trespass, among other things.