Lost River - Karst Information Portal

lost or overdues or minor injuries: A person
died after falling, having tried to descend an 80foot
pit on a 15-foot rope in Copperhead Pit. A
professor from Illinois fell off a ledge in Wayne
Cave and sustained severe facial fractures. The
ensuing rescue took most of the night and next
morning as part of the evacuation involved a
1,400-foot crawlway with several very tight
squeezes. A couple of spelunkers entered the
Donaldson-Bronson System during a period
of heavy rains and one of them was washed
through and sustained serious injuries while
the other was trapped in the cave for a period
of three days, making national headline news.
A spelunker was crushed in a cave in Greene
County when a rock he was crawling past
shifted. A party of drunk spelunkers entered
Buckner and one of them was left behind asleep
in the cave. Upon waking he walked off a 12foot
ledge and sustained severe spinal injuries
halfway around the circle route. A caver fell in
the Blair System and sustained serious injuries
an hour’s fast travel time into the cave. A caver
on a CIG trip fell in Dog Hill-Donnehue Cave
and broke her lower leg. She had a choice of a
very long, tight series of crevices to get out one
entrance, or a long series of bathtubs to get out
the other. An experienced caver fell 25 feet in
Birthday Plunge and was severely injured. To get
him out meant getting him up 25 feet, through
a crawlway, up 60 feet, through a squeeze, and
up another 65 feet. A spelunker fell in Buckner
Cave, fracturing her tailbone, and had to be
evacuated. There were two simultaneous rescues
in two different caves due to entrapment from
high water from the same storm system. Three
cavers got lost in the Blair system and spent
54 hours in the cave before they were found.
Another caver fell in Doghill-Donnehue Cave
fracturing her ankle. A caver rappelled off the
end of a rope and fell 20 feet in Freeman Pit. A
couple of spelunkers spent 60 hours in Reeves
Cave before being found. A spelunker fell 25
feet in Langdons Cave and was injured when
his friend fell on top of him trying to get him
out. An intoxicated man fell 30 feet in a pit
suffering minor injuries but feeling no pain; his
friends initially tried to haul him up the pit and
The National Cave Rescue Commission
through the entrance squeeze with the winch
on their jeep. They stopped when he started
screaming in pain. A 14-year-old boy fell 35
feet, fracturing his ankle, in another unnamed
cave, 1,800 feet into the cave through a series of
very-tight, water-filled canyons.
During this period, aside from all of
these rescues, there were also over 50 lost and
overdue calls for the caves in southern Indiana,
including such memorable ones as the fellow
who threatened suicide in Buckner and the
three searches in a row in Doghill-Donnehue
Cave, the last two due to people reading the
newspaper article (which included the map
of the cave and how to get to it) about the
previous ones, or the fellow who was rescued
three times, each time due to alcohol (once
he and his girlfriend burned their clothes for
warmth.) Not only have we rescued people, but
a number of dogs have been rescued, a couple
of cows, and even a goat. We were even called
to get a horse out, but luckily it was extricated
before we got there.
This rather high number of cave rescues can
be attributed to several factors. First, during
this era extreme sports were becoming popular
and caving was considered “extreme.” The types
of people who participated in extreme sports
then weren’t the type who got involved in the
caving community so they had limited access
to proper training. Second, Bloomington and
Bedford were expanding towards the caving
areas and people were made aware of the
locations of caves by publications such as The
Spelunkers Guide to the Garrison Chapel Valley,
which was distributed by the Bloomington
Welcome and Visitors Center. Third, there was
little control on access to many of the caves in
the area. Finally, a culture of folks using caves
to party had developed.
During the previously mentioned period,
NCRC training had really started to become
common. More and more cavers and agency
personnel were being trained in cave rescue
techniques, and a happy side result was that
cavers were paying more attention to safety.
Several cavers in Indiana were heavily involved
in cave rescue and the NCRC. Don Paquette
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