1/18/2024 0 Comments John james nutty putty cave![]() ![]() ![]() After six hours' work, they finally managed to bring Mitchell's bones to the surface. After three years of planning, an actor called Christian Lyon - grandson of George, the cave's discoverer - gathered a new rescue team. Which is why the events of last Saturday will have such resonance to cavers around the world. "It wouldn't be a matter of course now, if someone died in a cave, to leave their body in place," Grgich-Warke says. And most families, of course, would always wish to get the body back. Why should all others who choose to explore this cave be denied the opportunity because of one person's error in judgment?"Ĭertainly, advances in caving technique mean that even in such cramped conditions, recovery of a dead caver's remains is now usually possible. "I am terribly sorry for this death," says one voice on the National Speleological Society's noticeboard, "but I must admit I am also sad this cave has been gated for so many years because of one man's mishap. While the story continued to be told with reverence, and the many lessons from it were gratefully learned, the decision to seal the cave became a source of some controversy. The entrance was blasted shut with dynamite to prevent future mishaps, and a memorial stone was laid to mark the events of that day. "We had to get the hell out of there." And so, reluctantly, the team decided that the bottom of Schroeder's Pants would have to serve as Mitchell's grave. "Dirt was coming down the shaft," one of the rescuers told reporters. As they attempted this, part of the cave collapsed, making further rescue efforts unsafe. Mitchell's death did change the rules of pot-holing, but there was an agonising coda to his story: after three days attempting to haul Mitchell's body back up the shaft, the rescue team decided they would have to drill through the rock to make more space. "They didn't realise that when you stop moving you stop generating lots of heat, and that's when you're most at risk." Modern cavers generally wear a fleece undersuit covered with a waterproof PVC layer in Mitchell's day it was common to go down deep in only jeans and cotton overalls. "It was the first time that people began to understand the risk of hypothermia in caving," says Paula Grgich-Warke, secretary of the British Caving Association. Second, cold water, rather than narrow passages or falling rocks, is the greatest danger in cave exploration. Mitchell's death made two things clear to cavers across the world: every cave complex needs trained rescue teams stationed nearby - Washington isn't good enough if you are going down a hole in another state. But when the rescue team finally arrived and began pulling on the rope, they soon realised that it was a corpse they were trying to recover. A national "grotto rescue team" flew out on Air Force 2 from Washington DC, and within hours Mitchell's plight became a top news story coast-to-coast. "Later on, he could not talk at all."įinally, Bennett climbed out of the cave to get help. "He told me not to worry, that he'd get out," Miller said the next day. ![]() For 45 minutes, Bennett and Miller tried to haul Mitchell, who weighed 13 stone, back up into the higher chamber. Still calm, his head doused relentlessly with freezing water, he began climbing back up the rope, but his one hand could not grip in the cold and the wet. He tried to jog himself loose and keep descending, but the equipment would not budge. The line had caught, trapping one of his arms. Undeterred, Mitchell, armed with a foot strap and a waist harness, fixed his safety line and began to lower himself down the shaft in an attempt to reach the deeper cave.īut then, suddenly, he stopped. A small river was racing down through this shaft, at the rate of about 10 gallons every minute. At the centre of this dark chamber, a vertical shaft plunged 80ft down into another cave. He had planned to visit Lyon that morning to discuss the cave - Lyon owned the land the cave lies beneath - but he was not at home, and thus was unable to warn the young cavers about the thick streams of icy meltwater that poured through the caverns they were about to enter.Ĭaving in New York state is a cramped affair, but the group managed to squeeze through a series of pitch-black, narrow passages until they reached an open chamber. Though it was snowing on the day of Mitchell's visit, temperatures had been warmer than usual for much of the previous week. ![]()
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