Caving Accident Rockingham County

[Evan G]

I was looking at Scott's posting when I notice this one also:

Caving Accident Rockingham County
http://www.whsv.com/home/headlines/3499506.html

A teenager was flown to the University of Virginia Medical Center following a caving accident yesterday.
A nineteen-year-old man suffered a leg injury when a boulder fell on him.
The man was exploring Church Mountain Cave west of Broadway off Runion Creek Road.
He was part of a youth group from Camp Horizon.
According to authorities the man was down 60 feet in the cave and it took six rescue personnel around two hours to get him out.
The teen was transported by air care to UVA Medical Center with a broken leg.

Scott's posting: http://www.caves.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2260&highlight=

[Scott McCrea]

Golly. A bad day to be caving in the Shenandoah Valley. Thanks for the heads up Evan.

[shottheradio]

yeah,i work at endless caverns right near there,and i did hear about this. They actually called the cave asking if anyone there was able to do cave rescue.Unfortunately no one was.

[Stridergdm]

Two hours, that's not to bad. Though I wonder if "down 60 feet" means simply 60 feet into the cave or down apitch or what? Anyone know.

BTW, I'll mention that the 2007 NCRC weeklong will be down in Virginia this year. Since you sound local, you may want to look into it.

Anyway, glad to hear it sounds like all went relatively well (considering

[shottheradio]

what happens if you haven't had any rope exp.?

[Jep]

There are quite a few small pits in the Harrisonburg area in the 60' range. The couple I've done were free climbable with no passage at the bottom. Jep.

[cavedoc]

what happens if you haven't had any rope exp.?

This question is about the NCRC training? The NCRC does expect you to be capable of basic movement on rope. The first day you will have to demonstrate the capacity of climbing the rope, changing over to descent, and coming down. If this sounds difficult you do have 5 months to prepare. Someone at a local Grotto could show you how to do this. If you are not interested in rope experience the NCRC does do a weekend orientation that does not require any rope skills. You might try that and see if this interests you.

[Stridergdm]

Yes, you need vertical experience to be able to pass the first day check-offs.

There is a Friday evening Vertical Class, but note this is really for people who need to work on existing skills or perfect them. It's NOT designed to take a complete novice and teach them everything they need to know.

I would also second the suggestion to talk to a local grotto member.

Also if you can attend a 2 day OCR (Orientation to Cave Rescue) that's a good place to get your feet wet so to speak. And if yours are at all like any I've helped teach, often on Saturday evening after dinner a rope or two will be tossed up over a beam, branch, skyhook, etc and some rope work will be done.

[james121]

Its allways very risky !