Another Alabama rescue

[Scott Shaw]

"December 4, 2006

From The NewsChannel 19 News Team: [A Huntsville Television Station]

Rescue teams freed a man stuck in a cave overnight Saturday into Sunday morning.

Rescuers say two men went into the Marshall County cave, about five miles off Cardessa Lane near Grant around Noon on Saturday. They were apparently going to repell. One of the men was inexperienced and got stuck in the cave.

The trouble is, the same thing happened to one of the rescuers. A rescue team from Hamilton County, Tennessee was called in to help. Everyone is safely out of the cave now, and everyone is okay."

Maybe Buddy Lane can give us some more details on this one as well.

[Carl Amundson]

Here are some interesting items that are potentially facts regerding this rescue:

The Huntsville Cave Rescue Unit was one of the groups called out to this rescue.

Two guys had repelled thru a tight crevasse about 100 feet into the cave on Saturday (sorry but I don’t know the name of the cave). One guy was able to make it back out and the other ended up being stuck on rope. He could not get back up thru the crack and could not do a change-over to get back down the rope. He was stuck on the rope for over four hours before they got him down. Not a good thing. The crevasse was very tight and only a few rescuers were able to access that part of the cave. The guy had no feeling in his legs and was very hypothermic by the time they got him down. They had to squeeze him thru the crack without being in a Skid or Furno. It just would not fit. Even after they got him out, he still had no feeling in his legs. I have not heard how he is doing now.

Does anyone have any links to news reports on this rescue?

[mabercrombie]

does anybody know if the rescuees where from Valley Head Alabama?

[Carl Amundson]

A little more info...
The person that was stuck on rope now has feeling back in his legs, but he remains hospitalized.

[Mike Cato]

Well, until someone reports the facts "officially", here are some interesting items that are potentially facts:

HCRU folks arrived in force and had a few folks small enough to drop the S-shaped tight canyon and begin assessing the patient's condition and situation. (Milo or Amemeba, FYI, at least two of them were women.)

One member was stuck briefly. After getting unstuck he was familiar enough with the major constriction to provide some "relief" with hammer and drill.

Hamilton County folks arrived to assist.

A haul system was rigged and the patient was successfully removed Sunday morning.

[Tim White]

Well, until someone reports the facts "officially", here are some interesting items that are potentially facts:

Mike- Thanks for indicating that you post contained potential facts.

I've requested a more factual post/report.

[Carl Amundson]

Sorry if I over stepped my bounds on this one...

I have amended my post to show that these are potential facts pending an offical report.

[Tim White]

Sorry if I over stepped my bounds on this one...

Not at all. I was just jibbing Mike a bit.
All is good.

[Mike Cato]

Well, until someone reports the facts "officially", here are some interesting items that are potentially facts:

Mike- Thanks for indicating that you post contained potential facts.

I've requested a more factual post/report.

Thanks Tim. When these things happen, folks are naturally hungry for information.

Remember, nature abhors a vacuum and people will fill the information vacuum as best they can. Heck, I'm still waiting for the "official" report on an accident that happened months ago. A person broadcast an email promising a report and nothing was ever released in that particular venue. Why am I interested in the report? Well, because I might want to try the activity sometime and just wanted to know what caused the accident. Pure and simple. Hoping to pick up something in the interest of safety.

Can you confirm the cave was Viking Cave? A friend who was in-cave for the rescue indicated the Viking Cave map didn't seem to match the cave he was in. But maybe that's just because he was out waaaaay past midnight.

[Realms]

Lol Mike- he told me the exact same thing. (didn't look much like the map) sounded like they all had a pretty long night of it.

[Tim White]

Indeed it was Viking Cave, which is a somewhat complex little fissure/canyon cave. Typical of caves South of the TN River. Remember the map is a Torode map, simplified for ease of use.

I started composing a report but decided not to post it because I was not on site. I’ve had lots of phone time with both HCRU and Hamilton County discussing it, but don’t feel that my report would be totally factual due to not having my notes, time-line, maps, etc. front of me. If there is no report posted soon, I’ll compile the notes that I have at home and make a posting.

[Scott McCrea]

I'm going just a little bit...

This is the (only) thing that annoys me about the publication of American Caving Accidents--the lack of timeliness. I wish ACA had a website where they could be posted and discussed and learned from. There are lots of lessons to be learned from the experiences of others. It's a shame to only learn them once every two years or so.

[Ralph E. Powers]

Hear hear! The ACA is such an invaluable publication. The website could use some tweaking so that incidents can be posted (after review by those who publish) to be a help to cavers.
I realize that careful analysis is done of the incident to better report on what went wrong and the things that could've been done to avoid it.
I'm not html savvy enough to offer my assistance (asides from ideas ... which may or may not be good ones).

[Bill Putnam]

Scott and Ralph,

I appreciate your comments and I do take them to heart.

The last issue of ACA was published one year ago, and the current issue is being published this month. We have returned to an annual publication schedule after many years of combined issues. The combined issues were produced as a cost-reduction measure. This issue will be the last of those, and includes reports for 2004 and 2005. The 2006 incidents will be published in 2007. Reports have traditionally been published at the end of the year following the reporting period.

The main reason for not publishing accounts immediately after an incident is that there is always a lot of confusion, uncertainty, and speculation right after an incident. That leads to rumor, gossip, and sometimes innuendo. Usually the participants need some time to rest, recover, think about what happened, sort out the details, and write up their reports. That typically takes anywhere from a week to a month, with reports appearing in grotto newsletters one to three months after an incident, depending on newsletter publication schedules.

You are quire right that ACA is more interesting and useful when it is published more frequently, which is why we have returned to the annual publication schedule and why we would like to publish in the summer rather than at the end of the year (the traditional ACA distribution date). It does take at least several months after the end of the year to obtain reports from newsletters, track down details and resolve inconsistencies, and begin preparing the incident summaries. For these and other reasons, it is not practical to publish before the summer following the reporting period.

But what about posting information on the ACA web page right after the incidents? Well, for one thing, this forum (usually in the Rescue section and the Caving in the News sections) already serves that purpose. For another, most early information comes from non-caving news media and is notoriously inaccurate. Sometimes information comes from trip participants or rescuers and sometimes it comes from local cavers through the grapevine. Those sources are also not very reliable in most cases, and sometimes cause additional confusion and uncertainty that has to be cleared up later. We don't want to publish inaccurate information on the ACA page, because it gets distributed, copied, cached, etc. and can be very persistent.

Gathering accurate information is difficult and time-consuming. I spent hours on the phone after each of the recent incidents in Alabama interviewing participants and collecting information for the ACA file. I won't publish any of that information, however, until the actual participants have had time to write their reports and stories and publish whatever they want to say about it. That's because I don't want to do anything to either influence their accounts or discourage them from publishing their own stories. I will collect those accounts when they appear and place them in the file to be used in writing the incident summary.

Bear in mind also that many rescue teams have a policy on publication of information which requires information to be released through the team leadership rather than by individual participants. They may also delay releasing information until after a team debriefing, which may not happen until several weeks after an incident, depending upon team meeting frequency and schedule.

I know we are all accustomed to the instant gratification of 24-hour cable and Internet news, but the reality is that it takes a while for the dust to settle after one of these things, and until it does there is little point in anyone other than the participants writing or commenting on the incident. Relating secondhand information often muddies up the water and makes it more difficult to sort out the facts later.

Speculation and discussion can be fun and entertaining, and sometimes even educational, but only when it is based on accurate information. That requires time and patience.

I am working, by the way, on several ideas for adding content to the ACA web page to make it more of a resource for cavers interested in accident prevention, safe caving techniques, and cave rescue. Look for lots of new material after the end of the year. Right now I have my hands full getting the latest paper issue to your mailboxes!

Bill Putnam
Editor, American Caving Accidents
aca@caves.org

[Mike Cato]

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence