Mock Rescue-Sullivan's Cave

The last day of the cave rescue class is an all-day mock rescue. As an instructor, I had volunteered to tag along as a "bat" with the communications task force. That meant I would follow along and remain in the background unless any safety issues arose, and then I could squeak and offer a suggestion. 

I arrived at Sullivan's Cave soon after the mock rescue was announced and watched the first group arrive with their personal gear and some group gear.

They also brought the reporting party, Don, who said he had been caving with three friends and one had gotten hurt and he had come out to get help. He offered to take the rescuers into the cave, but instead he was offered a chair and was repeatedly questioned by Marty to get every ounce of information out of him that she could.

Meanwhile, a gear cache was being assembled with ropes, wedding, communications wire, a cable ladder, an IRT pack, a litter, and more.

A tent was set up over the Incident Command Post.

And then the comm team was sent into the cave as the second team and I started following them. They did an excellent job laying the wire quickly and keeping it out of the way of subsequent teams. Usually later teams that enter the cave are told to follow the comm wire. The biggest compliment this team got was one team got lost because they couldn't find the wire, it was camouflaged so well!

The comm wire allows military field phones to be hooked up and communications between the cave and surface to occur. It saves a lot of time and energy than having someone going in and out of the cave to pass notes, especially with difficult passage.

As the comm team waited for more wire after running two spools in, we watched one of the "original cavers" exit the cave. He had hypothermia and made it difficult for his rescuers, but they persisted and did an excellent job of moving him out of the cave.

Meanwhile, another member of the "original cave team" had gotten lost while trying to find the entrance, but a search party found him in short order and got him out of the cave. That left just the injured caver, Jess, to get out.

Jess had a tib/fib fracture (broken leg), so she had to be packaged in a litter. Part of the cave was steep, so a rigging team prepared it for her exit.

Jess was moving before I got to see her. She was in a cave passage with waist-high water, and some of the rescuers were starting to get cold. So I traded places with another "bat" and followed some of the cold rescuers out of the cave.

On the way I managed to snap a photo of the great placement of this comm wire spool--on the ceiling out of everyone's way.

The entrance area was rigged with three different haul systems.

Jeff and Ellen patiently waiting for the patient to arrive at their part of the cave.

The area right outside the cave was also rigged.

The Incident Command Post had many more nametags hanging down from the awning, signifying who was doing what on the incident.

Finally a group arrived carrying Jess from the cave entrance to the parking area. Hurray!

She was unpackaged and a real medical doctor made sure she was okay. She was a bit on the cold side despite a wetsuit and blankets, but after a few minutes she seemed to be warming up just fine in the thick Indiana heat.

The rescue wasn't over just because Jess was out. There was still lots of gear to be washed!

And then the final step--Billy and Harold loading it into the big U-Haul truck and storing it until needed for a cave rescue--or next year's class.

It was a great 2009 class. Thanks to everyone who participated and helped make it happen.

Destination: Bluespring Caverns, Bedford, Indiana

Usually I post a desert destination on Mondays, but this week I have a fascinating destination from the Midwest, where I recently visited.

One evening after cave rescue classes, I was able to get away to nearby Bluespring Caverns, a commercial cave with boat tours along the Myst'ry River.

(Photo courtesy of Bluespring Caverns website)

Our after hours tour began with the owner, Jim Richards, giving us an orientation outside the visitor center/gift shop. 

Then we walked right under the building and down a steep path into a huge sinkhole, with tall trees rising all around us.
As soon as we got near the entrance, the temperature dropped from the 80s to the 50s. The interior cave temperature is about 52 degrees Fahrenheit. 

We could hear water before we see it, and we kept going down and down until we reached the river. Bluespring Caverns has the distinction of having over 21 miles of passage in it, including three miles of navigable cave stream passage, the longest in the U.S. We boarded a boat to begin our voyage.

My pictures don't do justice to what a magical trip it was. Once we left the dock, the only lights were those on the boat, so it was dark up ahead and dark behind us. We felt like explorers (with a really knowledgeable guide). At times we could see that  the water was only a few inches deep, while other times we didn't know how far the murky depths extended.

Much of the cave has been explored by cave divers, who have found numerous side passages, like the one shown above. We could even feel some air flow from this hole. The cave was found in the 1800s and we could only imagine what the earliest explorers thought as they went about with rudimentary gear.

Being an ecologist, one of my favorite things was looking for cave life. I saw some white crayfish and also cave-adapted Northern Cavefish (Photo above, courtesy of Bluespring Caverns website). The fish seemed to like hanging out near the walls of the cave.  

Not only were the sights marvelous, but also the sounds of the cave, the gentle movement of the boat, and the river's current as it moved through the cave, slowly eroding away the limestone rock to make larger passages.

The tour lasted about an hour, and then we got to take a peek at the overnight facilities. In the winter months, the caverns offers youth group camping, with a boat tour, a "wild" adventure tour, and then camping on bunkbeds in an upper part of the cave. It looked like it would be a lot of fun.

I would definitely recommend a trip to Bluespring Caverns--it kept me smiling the whole time and I can still picture myself cruising slowly on the underground river. For more information, take a look at the Bluespring Caverns website.

More Cave Rescue Practice

I've had time to sort through some of my cave rescue practice photos and here are some of the better ones. At the beginning of the week we practiced packaging a patient, something the students would repeat over and over in different exercises. The main difference of packaging a patient in a cave from a surface search and rescue is the extra insulation and vapor barrier that is usually used in caves to help warm the patient. Many caves in the U.S. tend to be on the chilly side, especially if you spend some time laying on wet rock.

Then we practiced some litter movement. Again, it isn't always as easy in a cave as on the surface. This technique is called pavement, when rescuers "pave" the cave bottom and send the litter over them. It can be used in wet, rocky passages where it wouldn't work to drag the litter.

After practicing some techniques, it was time to go to the obstacle course to practice some of the moves. 

I'm sure some people have never thought of a playground in these terms--and will never do so again.

The litter had to go through the monkey bars and out the other side.

Later in the week we went out to a cliff site to practice rope techniques. The hauling team looks like they're putting some effort into getting the litter up the cliff.

We used a variety of techniques and positions with the litter orientation and the litter attendant. Everyone agreed that having the litter attendant on a separate line makes the haul much simpler. In the photo above, the litter attendant (Wayne) is above the litter.

After the exercise, a couple instructors, Rebecca and Roy, posed for a photo.

And here are Scott and DJ, two more instructors.

Another day we went into a cave for some litter handling practice. Our first obstacle was the cave gate.

A salamander was hanging out below.

Then we walked down a narrow canyon passage.

In some parts of the cave, moving the litter was rather straightforward.

So the instructors (Bil and Jim) created an artificial wall to simulate a smaller passage.

Then it was time to try out the SKED litter in the canyon passage. It was a good workout for everyone.

In a couple days I'll have some photos up from the ten-hour mock rescue. Tomorrow is a more relaxing cave post.

Practicing Cave Rescue

Back in the Midwest, while Desert Boy got to have a vacation with his grandparents, I helped teach a cave rescue class. I started getting into cave rescue about 10 years ago and took a series of courses that led to me becoming an instructor for the National Cave Rescue Commission, which holds a national week-long seminar every year. 

This year we were in Indiana, which has thousands of caves in the southern part of the state. There are several different classes, and each spends time in the classroom and in caves practicing. I particularly like the in-cave exercises. There's nothing like a little mud, hard rocks, and tight spaces to make doing a rescue a little more challenging.

 
We practiced packaging a patient so that he wouldn't get hypothermic and then hauled him up.

There was also a team practicing doing lowers in case the patient needed to go down.

If gravity isn't in your favor, you need a haul team to pull the  person up, generally with some mechanical advantage because there aren't too many caves that have room for a huge number of people pulling!

Over the next few days I'll post some more photos of the seminar and a peek into a rarely-seen activity.

Desert Destination: Down into a Deep, Dark Cave

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to meet up with some other cavers and go to a deep pit in Nevada. It's been a few months since I've been on rope, so I was excited to have a chance to go into a cave that was reportedly 160 feet deep.

 

We hiked up into the pinyon-juniper forest, and then the cave just suddenly appeared. There wasn't a big cliff with a gaping hole. Instead we found a small limestone outcrop with a gaping hole, but it wouldn't have been visible to anyone unless they happened to walk by it. I can only imagine the reactions of the first person who found it--and the first person who entered it, not knowing if he had enough rope to reach the bottom.

We had some clue how deep the cave was, and we brought two ropes for safety sake.

We also did some rescue practice before we went into the cave so if someone needed to be pulled out of the pit, each person would know how to do it. It's always good to practice these things before you need to use them.

On the way down we wanted to check out a lead that went behind these formations. It looked intriguing, but unfortunately didn't go too far.

There was an interesting moth hanging out there.

And part of a jawbone of a small rodent next to some rodent scat.

Bill rappelled down to join me and take a look around. Then Tom came, and then we went down even further into the cave.

I stopped to take a look at this lizard, which I thought was dead. But Bill later saw it twitch and considered doing the great lizard rescue. 

I rappelled down to the bottom--well almost to the bottom. I ran out of rope, and it was 200 feet long. Fortunately, the rope ran out on a steep slope that I could walk on. So the cave is definitely deeper than the 160 feet we had been told about--and deeper than 200 feet!

At the bottom were some large formations in a room that was about 60 feet in circumference and 60 feet high. There was one small passage off to the side, but it didn't go too far.

There was a lot of popcorn and what sort of looked like aragonite.

And a poor snake had fallen into the cave and decayed there.

In a little side passage we found a tiny cave shield, only about six inches across.

Here's Tom, who was happy to make it to the bottom. He didn't have such a big grin when he first got out of the cave.

Here's Tom coming up the last section. He had worked up quite a sweat. It's not so easy hauling your own weight up 200 feet of rope, especially when you only move about a foot or so at a time.

He's slowly making progress, escaping from the deep void and into the fresh air.

Go, Tom, go. He manages to pull himself up the last bit.

And then he steps off to the side and can get off rope and relax.

Although it's always thrilling to go into a cave, especially one that's deep, and especially into one you haven't been into before, it's really nice to get back to sunlight--or clouds--again.