Amateur explorer warned of dangers after stumbling on eerie staircase that led to bizarre discovery – The Mirror
Images posted online showed a closed rusty trapdoor untouched in years and surrounded by moss – while another gloomy picture showed a narrow passage way into darkness
An man was warned of the dangers of urban exploring after accidentally stumbling across on an abandoned staircase that led to a bizarre discovery.
The man – known only as Dan – took to Reddit to share snaps of his bizarre discovery, which he captioned: "Stumbled upon a staircase hidden by trees, which leads to an underground tunnel today. It's near a reservoir that also appears to have bunkers knocking around too. Could it be something cool, or just some drainage?"
In one of the images posted to the online forum by Dan – who describes himself as "urban explorer. Beer enjoyer. Pokémon go master" – a rusty trapdoor untouched in years can be seen surrounded by moss. Another gloomy picture showed a narrow passage way into darkness, with steps hidden by leaves leading into the confined space. A third image showed a confined tunnel built from stone as the man ventured further into the unknown.
And the eerie pictures gained a raft of comments from fellow users. One warned: "Please be extremely careful with something like this. Undetectable poisonous gasses (without a machine) can gather in these underground areas and kill you very quickly before you even realise what is happening. A lot of major accidents on worksite come from holes in the ground, and it is a requirement to only enter when someone is outside watching you."
Another user chimed in in agreement, saying: "Yeah, that rusty trapdoor is something of a red flag. Metal rusting occurs via oxidisation, if there's more metal in that shaft then the entire space could be filled with oxygen deprived air. If you collapse in a space like that, you're dead. Accidents in that kind of scenario tend to kill three people on average, the first person who went in, and two would be rescuers."
Meanwhile a third said: "Are you in the south of England? There are loads of old bunkers down here, built in case of Nazi invasion. Mostly you can see them along the Thames, the canals and in the open farmland, but I guess a reservoir would be a good place for a strong point too."
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