Jim Gill/For the Appeal Clarence Jennings' International Scout is shown above the Loring pit on Thursday. Jennings drove the car to the top of the pit Wednesday and couldn't get it down. Deputies put the car in gear Thursday and let it roll 500 feet into the pit. The Storey County Sheriff's Office said the only safe way to remove the vehicle was to let it roll into the pit.
Another vehicle ended up in the Loring pit in Virginia City, but this time there were no casualties.
According to Storey County Sheriff's Sgt. Chris Parsons, Clarence Jennings, of Mound House, got stuck above the Loring pit between 7 and 8 p.m. Wednesday, near the same spot where a 63-year-old man was killed in May.
Jennings told deputies he was trying to turn around when his vehicle rolled off the roadway.
Parsons said Jennings was able to stop the vehicle and get out, then hike down the mountain around the pit.
On Thursday, sheriff's deputies and fire personnel looked for ways to get the 1970s-era International Scout off the mountainside, but decided, because of the dangerous location and unstable ground, the only thing they could do was put it in gear and let it roll into the pit.
"The problem was, he was half on the road and half off, and you couldn't get a tow truck up there," Parsons said. "Even if you could, the car would probably pull the truck over."
He said even using a Caterpillar would have put the operator at risk, and there was fire danger involved as well.
So, at about 10 a.m., Parsons said, they took the vehicle out of gear and it went down on its own.
Parsons said the narrow road Jennings was on ended abruptly, and there's no place to turn around.
On May 22, Alvin Ellwood Baldwin was trying to maneuver his Jeep in the same area, when he lost control and rolled 500 feet into the pit. Baldwin was on a rock-hunting trip with his wife, who had gotten out of the Jeep before it fell. Baldwin was killed instantly.
The Loring pit is located across State Route 341 from the Historic Fourth Ward School on the south end of town.
Parsons said markings from Baldwin's Jeep were only 10 feet away from where the Scout was stuck and even landed in about the same place.
"He was very lucky," Parsons said. "He got it stopped and was able to bail out of it."
• Contact reporter Karen Woodmansee at kwoodmansee@nevadaappeal.com or 882-2111 ext. 351.