Miner Jesse Goins, who was featured on the Discovery Channel series Gold Rush, has died at 60. Goins had been on the Colorado set of the show, but was found unconscious by a member of the crew on Tuesday night. After being taken to the hospital, Goins was pronounced dead, but the cause of his sudden death is not yet known.
Jesse Goins served as a gold room operator and gold miner, alongside series star Dave Turin on the spinoff show Gold Rush: Dave Turin's Lost Mine, and had been in 15 episodes, all told, of the popular franchise, with his last appearance coming during the May 29 episode of Lost Mine. Goins was also seen in two episodes of the long-running series' aftershow, The Dirt, earlier this year. Deadline reports that Discovery has confirmed his death.
Gold Rush follows several family-run mining companies, mostly in the Klondike region of Dawson City, Yukon, Canada, and those companies' efforts at placer mining, which focuses on the mining of stream beds to find mineral deposits, along with the use of new machines and other technology or techniques which become common in the profession. Season 10 of the main series aired earlier this year, and, in addition to Lost Mine, the show has spawned four spinoffs, which have featured members of the main cast heading off to locations such as Guyana, Peru, Chile, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Alaska, Arizona, and Montana to mine.
Gold Rush: Dave Turin's Lost Mine follows Gold Rush star Dave Turin as he sets out on his own after six seasons working with the main mining crew of the original series. After Season 7 left the former quarry foreman frustrated and saw him get involved in a fist fight, he retired to get his own crew together with members of his Oregon-based family quarry. The show focused on Turin and his team looking at abandoned mines, in the hope of starting one of them back up, and saw him exploring the history of each mine as he sought to find his own path to mining success.
Christo Doyle, executive producer of Gold Rush and several of its spinoffs, as well as acting as host for the after show on which Jesse Goins had appeared, had this to say about the loss of the miner:
Nathan Clark, a miner who was also featured on Lost Mine for the two seasons of the series, also took to twitter to pay tribute to Jesse Goins, in an emotional post.
It's clear that Jesse Goins made an positive impact on those around him, and will surely be missed. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time.
