Ndumiso works at a different shaft at the mine, and surfaced last month, before the current stand-off.
He is now waiting to see how the situation unfolds, before deciding whether to return.
The stand-off follows a government decision to crack down on an industry that has spiralled out of control, with mafia-like gangs running it.
“The country has been grappling with the scourge of illegal mining for many years, and mining communities bore the brunt of peripheral criminal activities such as rape, robbing and damage to public infrastructure, among others,” said Mikateko Mahlaule, chairman of the parliamentary committee on mineral resources.
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said the mine was a “crime scene”, but police were negotiating with the miners to end the stand-off, rather than going down to arrest them.
“Law-enforcement authorities have information that some of the miners may be heavily armed. It is well-established that illegal miners are recruited by criminal gangs and form part of wider organised crime syndicates,” he added.
Ndumiso was among hundreds of thousands of workers – both locals and nationals of neighbouring states like Lesotho – who have been retrenched as South Africa’s mining industry has gone into decline over the last three decades. Many of these have gone on to become “zama zamas” at the abandoned mines.
South Africa-based Benchmark Foundation researcher David van Wyk, who has studied the industry, said there were about 6,000 abandoned mines in the country.
“While they are not profitable for large-scale industrial mining, they are profitable for small-scaling mining,” he told the BBC Focus on Africa podcast.
Ndumiso said he used to work as a drill operator, earning less than $220 (£175) a month, for a gold-mining company until he was laid off in 1996.
After struggling for the next 20 years to find a full-time job because of South Africa’s crushingly high unemployment rate, he said he decided to become an illegal miner.
There are tens of thousands of illegal miners in South Africa, with Mr Van Wyk saying they number about 36,000 alone in Gauteng province – the country’s economic heartland, where gold was first discovered in the 19th Century.
“Zama zamas will often spend months underground without surfacing and depend heavily on outside support for food and other necessities. It is arduous and dangerous work,” said a report by campaign group Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime.
“Some carry pistols, shotguns and semi-automatic weapons to protect themselves from rival gangs of miners,” it added.
Ndumiso told the BBC that he did own a pistol, but he also paid his gang a monthly “protection fee” of about $8.
Its heavily armed guards fend off threats, especially from Lesotho gangs reputed to have more lethal firepower, he said.
Under the 24-hour protection of the gang, Ndumiso said he used dynamite for rock-blasting and rudimentary tools such as a pick axe, spade and chisel to find gold.
Most of what he finds he gives to the gang leader, who pays him a minimum of $1,100 every two weeks. He said he was able to keep some gold, which he sells on the black market to top up his income.
He was among the fortunate miners to have such an arrangement, he said – explaining that others were kidnapped and taken to the shaft to work like slave labourers, receiving no payment or gold.
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