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CARE-NET
it worked - but... The UVA Grotto's Care--net (cave rescue network) was launched on its maiden voyage January 9, 1965. We shall be forever grateful to Lew Bicking for this opportunity. Lew and three companions from VPI Grotto, Dixon Hoyle, Ed Bauer, and Robert Whittemore, combined their trip into the Snedegar system with some dangerous weather and a siphon to produce a situation that gave CARE--NET its first test.
The experience raised a few questions, however, which seem to me to warrant some constructive reflections.
CARE--NET? We responded to the call and I feel we were prepared to function efficiently should any definite action have been needed. It is possible that we could have departed Charlottesville an hour earlier.
Participants? Seventeen willing cavers were on hand; twelve from VPI and five from UVA. Many others were on route. The tremendous response was gratifying. Since the UVA and VPI teams were so readily available, would it not have been better to ask other crews to stand in readiness at home and await a radio call from the state police who were so willing to assist us. This would have saved one group from needlessly traveling as far as Waynesboro, VA, and another from traveling to within five miles of the cave before being informed they were not needed.
Leave out State Police? I feel bound to take serious exception to Lew Bicking's admonition that state police be left out of rescue operations, when possible, due to adverse publicity which often results. A call ahead to the West Virginia State Police saved many hours of possible delay. --Earl Geil, THE CAVALIER CAVER, March 1965.
| hellhole |
it has a nasty habit of living up to its name |
During the 1957 Old Timers Reunion while a party of NSS members and reunion participants were exploring Hell Hole Cave, WV, a group of novices approached Paul Damon and three companions at the top of the drop. Robert W. Keplinger of Keyser WV asked if his group might use the rope rigged at the drop to enter the cave. Noting the lack of equipment, Damon advised him against attempting the drop.
"However, before I could prevent it, Keplinger had climbed down the rope about ten feet. He then climbed up, almost to the surface, and I could see from the look on his face that something was wrong. He looked as if he had suddenly realized the tremendous drop beneath him, and was badly frightened. Before anyone could give him assistance, he lost his grip on the rope and fell. We could hear him brush against a ledge about half way down, and then we heard him hit with a loud thud, on the cave floor." Damon explained.
At first those in the cave thought the body to be a dummy, a joke being played on them by their friends on top. Damon, meanwhile, had gone for help at the Pittsburgh Grotto fieldhouse, near Seneca Caverns, and within twenty minutes Pittsburgh cavers had arrived with rope and rigging to begin rescue operations. The body was wrapped in a rubber blanket, placed in an emergency bag, strapped to a stretcher, and raised to the surface by block and tackle. The rescue operation took almost four hours.
NSS NEWS October, 1957
On October 20, a party of five from Pittsburgh went to Hellhole. The group consisted of an experienced (?) leader and four novices. The first person down the entrance drop, a girl who had been in a cave once before and had rappelled once before, found the rope to be 10 feet short of the bottom. The leader went down on another rope alongside hers. His rope was 40 feet short of the bottom, but he was able to talk with her from his position on the second rope. (It is difficult to shout any but the simplest of phrases up and down the drop.) The eventual solution to the girl's dilemma was for her to jump the remaining distance to the floor. (The floor consists of reasonably flat gravel underneath the entrance.) She made her jump with no injury. The leader then tried to transfer an ascender, which he was using for a safety, and himself, to the first rope. In attempting to switch, he fell from his rope. There were no knots tied in the end of either rope. He suffered a badly fractured ankle with splintering of the bones.
Members of the party went to a nearby climbing shop for help. There they got a Stokes litter (which the Forest Service provides for climbing accidents) and a rescue team consisting of seven climbers who happened to be available. A rope was rigged for hauling, using a sling to keep a pulley (or carabiner?) over the entrance in a conventional manner. Two people, one rescuer and one of the original party, went down to secure the victim in the litter. The pulling was done with a Land Rover that was driven into the field next to the entrance. Some difficulty was experienced with the litter catching on small projections, but it always freed itself as more force was applied. There were not enough people to haul efficiently with only manpower. --AMERICAN CAVING ACCIDENTS, 1974.
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