Teen Rescued from Old Military Bunker in Marin Headlands

A teen who tried to gain access to a old military bunker on Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands had to be rescued Sunday morning when he slipped and fell in an abandoned ventilation shaft, falling 35 feet down into the bunker, according to the Southern Marin Fire Protection District.

Firefighters from Southern Marin Fire and Marin County Fire were called to Battery Construction 129 near Conzelman Rd. in the Marin Headlands just before 10:30 a.m., according to Southern Marin Fire Chief Jim Irving.

Irving said the teen was part of a larger group of teens who tried to get into the bunker – some 500 feet long and containing about a half-dozen chambers – by going through an abandoned ventilation shaft. The teen was able to crawl through a small opening that had been dug out from where the Park Service had buried the opening to the shaft. After entering the shaft, the teen slipped and fell approximately 35 feet into the bunker.

Firefighters entered the bunker by cutting through a steel barricade that had been placed  on a lower entrance to the bunker several years ago, when the National Park Service sealed it because it was being use frequently by would-be revelers.

Irving said that because the area had been sealed off for several years, fire crews wearing self-contained breathing apparatus entered with air monitoring equipment to determine the breathability of the air inside. It took approximately 40 minutes for crews to gain access and remove the teen, he said.

When firefighters reached the teen, they determined that he'd sustained a broken arm and some cuts and bruises. He was taken to Marin General Hospital by paramedics from Southern Marin Fire.

The bunker, which was sealed by the park service in June 2011 to prevent an ever-growing group of explorers and revelers from accessing it, was actually never fully built as part of a network of Bay Area bunkers during World War II – hence its name Battery Construction 129. Work was suspended on the bunker in 1943 when U.S. military brass deemed them unncessary given the allied forces' success in the war.