Natural deaths of cavers

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Natural deaths of cavers

Postby Wayne Harrison » Oct 24, 2005 9:36 pm

Please forgive my morbid curiosity...

I was wondering if anyone had ever done a study of natural caving deaths to see if cavers have an abnormally high number of deaths by any particular type of illness.

What sparked my interest was reading about high amounts of radon in some caves, and that got me to wondering about other things. I figured if someone tracked all natural deaths of cavers, they could see if the group stats fit in with the general population, or have a spike on some area.
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Postby Ralph E. Powers » Oct 24, 2005 9:51 pm

Well as to the "cause" I can only think that it's an unusually high amount of frustration of not getting underground often enough. :)
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Postby Squirrel Girl » Oct 24, 2005 10:49 pm

Lets see.

Fred Wefer: colon cancer
Frank Reid: heart attack
Ed Zwalocke: heart attack (I think, and with a family history)
Lowell Burkhead: possibly something connected with his diabetes, I'm not sure
Ransom Turner: seizure
Doc Lewis: (don't know the cause)

:cry:

Who am I forgetting, that I knew? There are lots of cavers I've seen in the NSS obits, but I didn't know them or didn't know them well. Alas, I can probably think of more cavers I've know who've died caving.

:cry:
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Postby Sean Ryan » Oct 25, 2005 8:38 am

Radon gets you through lung cancer, mostly. Anyone know of non-smoking cavers who contracted lung cancer?
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Postby Joel Sneed » Oct 25, 2005 11:32 am

Radon, in association with caving activity, has been suspected, though unproven, in the high incidence of skin cancers I've had and continue to have - over 400 removed to date in the past 28 years and several awaiting removal! This per my dermatologist.
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Lung Cancer

Postby Tlaloc » Oct 25, 2005 2:19 pm

People that never smoked do get lung cancer.

Radon exposure guidelines are based on the Basic Effects of Ionizing Radiation study - a study of the lung cancer rates of miners who worked in uranium mines during the great postwar uranium boom in the Rocky Mountain states. As more data have accrued the data have been reanalyzed 4 times. The last reanalysis I know about was the BEIR IV. Because the miners also were exposed to uranium dust and some of them smoked the analysis of the data is difficult. For this reason a second study called the Iowa study has been done. In Iowa there are a lot of people that live in the same house for many years. This makes it easy to compare their exposure to radon to their rates of lung cancer. This study corroborates the findings of the BEIR IV.

You can easily find out about this with a search engine.

If you search the National Library of Medicine for journal articles about radon and cancer you will see that several thousand other studies have been done on this subject in many countries.

The subject of the dangers of radon exposure was debated heatedly on the old board. Basically it was a debate between those that believe the science and those that believe that the exposure guidelines were developed for political reasons and that radon exposure is harmless.

Not many cavers test caves for radon concentration so it's hard to know how much of a hazard this presents for cavers. There are caves known to have astounding concentrations of radon - so high in fact that it is hard to believe that they wouldn't present a health hazard to cavers.
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Postby Cindy Heazlit » Oct 25, 2005 2:24 pm

Bill Halliday did an analysis on caver morbidity. He also did some studies on radon and caver health.

One thing is clear - if you smoke you increase the pobability that the radon will stick to your lungs.
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Postby Daisy » Oct 25, 2005 9:00 pm

I have a few caver friends from Huntsville who have died of cancer. John Van Swearingen (JV) from colon/liver cancer. Rick O'Hara from peritoneal mesothelioma (very rare, caused by exposure to asbestos).

Rick's good caving buddy and a friend of mine got lung cancer several years after Rick died (in his 30s). Never smoked. He's convinced radon was a factor (I'm not saying that's true, just what he thinks). He is now a cancer survivor, which is great! :P

I gotta say a few of my friends got really paranoid about caving and radon after two of our close caver friends got really weird, rare cancers.
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Postby Joel Sneed » Oct 26, 2005 11:40 am

I believe that rangers at National Park caves wear radon monitors, and, after a certain level is reached they are assigned to out-of-cave duties for a while, as the effects are cumulative.

We tested several areas in Kingston Saltpeter Cave, where I spent a lot of time, and found only small amounts of radon.

Weren't areas of Big Bone Cave, TN off-limits at one time due to high concentrations?
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Postby Sean Ryan » Oct 26, 2005 12:00 pm

http://www.epa.gov/iaq/radon/pubs/rducrsks.html

Here's the EPA site about radon. There's a color-coded map on the site to show where the biggest radon risks are in the country. Some are cave heavy, some aren't.
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Postby Phil Winkler » Oct 26, 2005 12:10 pm

Daisy/Jenn,

A good friend of mine, Paul Boyer, also died of mesothelioma (It killed Steve McQueen, too) in the early 80s. Paul was also a caver and one of my mentors where caving is concerned. I assisted his father for a while in trying to determine where he might have been exposed to asbestos. Paul at one time shipped out on a tramp steamer to South America. Its below-decks' walls and pipes were all coated with friable asbestos.

Does anyone remember the NSS Office having high levels of radon? The state used it as an experimental site for radon remediation. I can't remember the results. Where's Jim Hall or Bill Torode when you need them? :)
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Postby Lynn » Oct 26, 2005 1:19 pm

Joel Sneed wrote:I believe that rangers at National Park caves wear radon monitors, and, after a certain level is reached they are assigned to out-of-cave duties for a while, as the effects are cumulative.

We tested several areas in Kingston Saltpeter Cave, where I spent a lot of time, and found only small amounts of radon.

Weren't areas of Big Bone Cave, TN off-limits at one time due to high concentrations?


Big Bone Cave, TN was closed for several months while Radon tests were conducted. It is my understanding the cave has been re-opened.

Here is a link to a pdf from The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry [http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/] that some may like to review.

Big Bone Cave State Natural Area Rock Island, Van Buren County - September 13, 2004 - Health Consultation
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/hac/PHA/BigBon ... 304-TN.pdf
http://www.flickr.com/groups/cavers CAVERS, CAVES & CAVING PHOTOS
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Postby Cheryl Jones » Oct 26, 2005 6:52 pm

Phil Winkler wrote:Daisy/Jenn,
Does anyone remember the NSS Office having high levels of radon? The state used it as an experimental site for radon remediation. I can't remember the results.

I don't know what the recent readings are, or if the state is still taking readings, but after the exhaust fans were installed a few years ago, I believe the radon levels dropped to acceptable/safe levels.

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Postby Daisy » Oct 29, 2005 6:59 am

Shelta Cave has extremely high radon levels, and the NSS office did too until they installed the fans. I couldn't remember how high the readings were so did a quick search on "Shelta Cave Radon" and found this:

The EPA recommends anything over 4 picocuries of radon per liter of air of radon be mitigated. In Shelta Cave, the tests have shown 400 to 500pCi/L of radon. The NSS office had a radon reading of 83 pCi/L, more than 20 times the acceptable level.


I hope the NSS office has a radon detector and the staff checks it frequently.
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Those are High

Postby Tlaloc » Oct 29, 2005 11:58 am

It's been a few years since I studied this but it seems to me that 70 pico curies per liter is one working level for a mine - the level at which MSHA restricts the number of hours that one can work there.

I have heard that a cave in Wyoming has estimated levels of 6 - 7000 pCi/L. Attempts to measure the concentration directly failed because the alpha track detectors were completely saturated. The levels were inferred from the concentration of a bismuth isotope (a radon daughter) in the dust in the cave. If this is inaccurate maybe someone can correct me. Certainly you would think that this level is hazardous.

For individuals there are two types of detectors. Charcoal detectors are used for a short period like a week and sent to a lab. If high levels are detected then alpha track detectors are used for a longer period like six months to get a more accurate reading.
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