Missing West Virginia Cavers have Hypothermia

[L Roebuck]

Lost Cavers Treated for Hypothermia

A sigh of relief Monday night as a group of missing cavers are found.

Skye Fisher, 20, and his fiance Keri Krall were caving with three of their friends when they went missing.

Fisher is from Newport, Perry County and is a student at Harrisburg Area Community College.

The group went to Simmons Mingo Cave near Elkins, West Virginia on Friday.

Full Story

[Clint Neill]

This was posted on the Pittsburgh Grotto listserver:

I received a call from Carrol Bassett at 4AM this Morning.
"There's a rescue call out at Simmons Mingo Cave system, 5 missing
cavers, Get your gear and get up there we need everyone we can get"
I got up,and got my butt up there pronto. Turns out there were 2
experienced cavers and 3 beginners attempting a thru trip.They had
gone in the Dry Branch side Saturday 9AM and it was now Monday. It
sounded real bad especially when we all knew the water passage was
very high. Craig Hall and other cavers I didn't know and I were were
sent to the dry branch side to run wire for field telephones.
Another group who KNEW the cave also went in to run the thru trip to
try to find the missing cavers. Before we got far with the wire, we
heard from a Ham Radio operator at the entrance that the cavers had
been located by search teams scouring the Mingo side so we reeled in
the wire and went back to the Mingo side. By then there must have
been 100 cavers, the fire Dept, EMTs, the Red Cross and the State
Police. One by one 4 of the cavers were brought up the entrance drop
via a haul line and seat harness. One woman had to be brought up on
a stretcher and helicoptered to a hospital. All 5 were Dehydrated
and hypothermic. The woman who was evacuated had fallen and had
broken ribs and injured knees, she couldn't walk. Lou and I were
sent in near the end to recover their gear. It was far into the cave
and we weren't sure where it was (we weren't too sure of the route
either). We found the 5 packs and proceeded out of the cave...
slowly as we had 7 packs between us. The rescue was done when I
exited the cave.. the very last man out about 4:30pm. Everyone
cheered beacuse it was over. No fatalities, no injured rescue
workers. A sucessful rescue!
Steve Z

[Tim White]

Thanks for that report!
Great to hear that things went well on this one.

[L Roebuck]

Thanks for posting the the Pittsburgh Grotto message Clint. It is always good for cavers to hear the Cave Rescuers first hand account of the rescue.

[Brian Roebuck]

Good post and congrats to all for a good rescue. I always like a happy ending.

[L Roebuck]

Here's another article...

---

A real lost weekend
Five friends, two of them from Dillsburg, got lost in a cave and weren't found until Monday.

Apr 25, 2007 — For Jason Ross, getting lost for two days in a West Virginia cave did not shake his interest in spelunking; if anything, it intensified his desire for underground exploration.

"It isn't done," he said Tuesday night from his Dillsburg home. "I've been caving for 10 years, and this is the first time I couldn't figure out how to get out. ... I've got to go and find out where I went wrong."

The wrong turn for Ross, 30, his cousin Dan Sampson, 25, and friends Heidi McWilliams, 20, Skye Fisher, 20, and Keri Krall, 21, came about 8½ hours into their trip into the Mingo-Simmons cave, Sampson said.

Full Article

[Brian Roebuck]

Interesting article about how they endured their stay in the cave. They went out for Pizza after being rescued. "Real cavers" would have gone for Mexican food! ;D (kidding)