On tonight’s heart-stopping edition of Gold Rush: White Water, mother nature teaches Dakota Fred Hurt and his crew a serious lesson as diver Carlos Minor gets trapped underwater in the raging McKinley creek.
In Monsters and Critics’ exclusive clip, we see what seems to be a short distance and an easy assignment turn into a life-or-death race to free Carlos, who doesn’t have the strength to escape from the vast weight of water pummeling down on top of him.
The clip shows Carlos having to enter the danger zone of the river — the center current where the force of the water is at its most dangerous — to get a boulder into a claw the team have set up.
The rationale for this death-defying maneuver is that the team think there is a large amount of gold underneath the boulder, amongst the gravel and rocks at the bottom of the river. This should make the venture worth it — as long as they can figure out how to safeguard Carlos as he attempts this dive.
Dustin Hurt is manning the comms above water as he says to Carlos: “Are you gonna go across?”
Carlos is already submerged under the rapidly moving water and the guys are on full alert monitoring him and listening to Dustin’s commands.
Dustin concedes that with mother nature, you are lucky if you get a break, and it doesn’t appear any will be given to Carlos as we begin to hear his cries for help.
Carlos is heard saying: “I don’t even know where I’m at dude,” before yelling, “All stop! all stop! I can’t… I am stuck! All stop, all stop, I am stuck, I can’t stand up!”
Underwater footage shows that Carlos is trapped beneath the team’s dredge, pinned down by over a quarter million gallons of water pounding down the creek every minute.
It’s tense. And even Dustin, Fred’s son who normally jokes around a lot, is looking worried as he communicates over the radio and tries to keep Carlos from going into a full panic underwater.
The rest of the guys rush into action in a bid to move the tether cables attached to Carlos in a way that allows him, hopefully, to get unstuck.
Fans of the show remember Carlos from last season. He is a retired Marine Sergeant and professional oil platform diver, who is working again this season with Texan brothers Wes and Paul Richardson, the equipment managers/mechanics.
New to the crew this season are greenhorn Rich Webster and Arizona miner Casey Morgan, who Fred and Dustin hired to help them out.
as you won’t want to miss what happens to Carlos and what is under that big boulder they sent him down to remove.
Gold Rush: White Water airs on Fridays at 10/9c on Discovery.