[Warning: The below contains spoilers for Gold Rush: White Water Season 8, Episode 2.]
Dustin Hurt incurred a devastating injury during the Season 8 premiere of Gold Rush: White Water last week. He thought he broke something in his hand while working on the pulley system for his crew’s deuce sluice. This is why the mine boss was MIA at the start of the May 2 episode. He ventured 30 miles from Nugget Creek to Haines, Alaska to get a prognosis on his hand, which caused excruciating pain.
Carlos Minor diving in the white water. (Discovery Channel)
Meanwhile, operations came to a halt until he got back. Carlos Minor questioned how long they’d be down for. Hurt needed the season to pay off amid mounting debt from the cost of his claims. The group wanted to get as much work as possible done while Hurt was away. They went to check on their 250-pound Deuce Sluice, engineered by brothers Wes and Paul Richardson out of parts from three other dredges. It was found dangerously close to the water, inches from possibly getting taken by the angry current below.
The skyline anchors they installed 550-feet above weren’t holding due to the weight of the dredge. A plan was made to find solid rock and install another set of anchors to act as a backup. Elsewhere, Hurt received devastating news. He had a broken finger and a ruptured tendon pulley. A choice had to be made. Go in for surgery as recommended by the doctor, which meant the end of the season. Or do possible irrefutable damage to his hand and continue on. “It’s an easy choice for me. I’ll give up a finger for that,” he declared.
Although Hurt would be on light duty and wouldn’t do any diving. He leaned on the others who would have to go into full rotation in order to pick up the slack. When it came to their skyline issue, Hurt’s idea was to crank the skyline so tight that the primary anchors blew out the unstable rock and transferred the load to James Hamm’s secure backup anchor bolts. This would allow them to add the tension and raise dredge clear of the water.
They ran into issues with the anchor bolts not coming out, but through a dangerous process were eventually able to remove them. The fixing by breaking plan ultimately worked, meaning they could start diving for gold at The Wall site. Up first were Minor and Paul. After two hours, the Deuce Sluice’s experienced problems due to the rushing waters affecting the dredge’s filter basket Intake restricted flow, super heating the hot water supply into the deadly steam. Luckily, the water valve opened up to release the boiling steam before reaching the divers.
Material was moved, but gold wasn’t found. The process was also impeded by foot valves getting stuck with sticks. One of those intake valves actually snapped off by the white water. Without any replacement at the moment, they had to reduce effort by only using one diver. Morale was falling as Hamm went into the water hoping to turn things around. He followed the bedrock wall and dredged out material to get down to its deepest point Hamm fought the fierce current dredging down to the bedrock. It was a real struggle. Hurt called it a day, but not before uncovering Hamm found a small nugget! Proof they were in fact in the right spot.
Gold Rush: White Water, Fridays, 8/7c, Discovery Channel