In 1925, a man named Floyd Collins failed to come home from a day of cave exploration. A brief search located Collins. He was less than 200 feet from the entrance to a small cave just a couple of miles from his home. Collins had been on his way out of the cave when he dislodged a rock which pinned his leg against the wall of a narrow crawlway. Because of the size of the passage, Collins could not reach around to move the stone, and it had pinned him well enough that he could not back up. He accidentally knocked off his lamp in the process of trying to get out, leaving him sitting the damp, cool and absolute darkness. Rescuers found him quickly, and for four days they brought Collins water, food, and reassurance that they would get him free. An electric line was run down to him, and an electric bulb put near his face so he would have both light and some small amount of warmth.
As rescuers worked, the site — in central Kentucky in an area now part of Mammoth Cave National Park — became crowded with hundreds of reporters, gawkers, and well-wishers. Quick thinking entrepreneurs sold Floyd Collins souvenirs. Some who, like Collins, owned other caves in the area, used the opportunity to bring tourists to view their own attractions. A reporter named “Skeets” Miller, who was as wiry and small as Collins himself, was able to get face to face with the trapped man, remove some of the debris around his head and chest, and even conduct an underground interview with Collins that captivated the nation.
But in just a few days, the coming and going of would-be rescuers in an out of the tiny cave upset the balance of heat and humidity. Fissures appeared. More rocks began to fall. The cave collapsed at two points, making it impossible to reach Collins. The mood of the crowd on the surface changed from that of a carnival to desperation. The tense crowd on the Kentucky hillside grew to number in the thousands, all of them focused on a man just fifty feet below the surface.
Rather than try to dig through the debris inside the cave, a shaft was started from the surface to intersect the cave and free Collins. It took thirteen days to assemble the equipment, dig the vertical shaft, then construct a horizontal tunnel to reach the trapped man. By then, Floyd Collins was dead. The rock that had pinned him underground weighed less than 16 pounds.
The story of Floyd Collins—which captured the nation’s attention and generated books, songs, and at least one play—may seem like a bad omen considering what’s happening on the far side of the world at this moment. Collins was a tragedy in miniature. A single man. Just out of reach.
Things are different now, of course. Technology is infinitely better. Understanding of caves and cave rescue has advanced enormously. But … the thirteen members of the Thai soccer team aren’t less than two hundred feet from the surface. They are a mile and a half from the entrance. And cave diving remains a very, very dangerous endeavor.
My first job out of college came with the best title I would ever have—Expeditions Coordinator for the National Speleological Society. In addition to having the pretty trivial assignment of making sure the survey’s tape measures, clipboards, and Brunton hand transits (Compasses. Expensive compasses) were all tallied up at the end of the day, I spent more than forty hours a week underground, most of it with a partner improbably named Gordy Howe.
Together Gordy and I mapped miles of passage as part of something called the West Kentucky Speleological Survey. The WKSS wasn't taking place in the nice booming caverns around Mammoth and the other Flint Ridge / Joppa Ridge caves (one of which still carries Collins' name). What we were exploring were mostly what went by the quaint name of "sewer caves." That is, low passages, many of them containing active springs, located just above the level of a stream or river. It was terribly exciting, often coming with the unmatchable privilege of being somewhere, and seeing something that no human being had ever seen before. It also came with a fair share of shuffling forward with motions of elbows and toes, face pressed against the stone, and snaring breaths between the glug-glug-glug sound of the water lapping at the ceiling.
It’s deceptively simple to be trapped in a cave by rising waters. After all, caves are carved by the action of running water and many are found at low levels where their underground rivers are directly connected to surface water. Pits, sinks, and sinking streams bring water into caves quickly, and water from several square miles of the surface may be funneled through a series of passages to exit through a very small opening. An entrance that is comfortable to walk through in the morning, may be literally jetting water like a huge firehose that afternoon.
You don’t have to be an idiot, or ignorant to be caught in this kind of situation. And it doesn’t have to be 1925.
In 1993, counselors from St. Joseph's Home for Boys led a group of kids into Cliff Cave — a small cave in a county park just south of St. Louis. It was a sunny Friday in summer. The cave was a well-mapped site that hosted dozens of such groups in a year. The counselors were experienced and familiar with the cave. The local park authorities cleared them to go. Each boy had a helmet and a light. Everyone was carefully instructed. They entered the cave just after noon.
Two hours later, a flash flood swept through the area. Twelve children made it out amid the rising waters. Five of the children drowned. So did a 21-year-old female counselor who tried to save them. A single child, left in the cave alone, survived the night holding his face in an air pocket while the dark waters raged around his body, threatening to sweep him down the tunnel.
This kind of thing can happen to well-intentioned people, who seem well prepared, and who have made the same trip, without incident, many times before. Do not go thinking that the Thai soccer coach had to be a knucklehead to get his kids caught in this situation.
I love caves. I love the dark cool depths. I love the thrill of stepping from a mud-slick passage into some vast chamber, strewn with house-sized boulders or festooned with sheets of flowstone. But caves are indifferent to human presences, and sometimes — as in Collins case — they can be inimical. The fact that I went through miles of unmapped passage with little more than bruises, a cracked shin and a couple of broken ribs (never keep your spare batteries in your shirt pocket) isn’t a testimony to my skill. It’s the result of winning a lot of dice rolls.
And cave diving … is dangerous. Seriously, deeply, truly dangerous. Cave diving comes with all the constrictions of regular caving, but without the air. Plus it comes with air tanks and hoses and all that other gear, all of it seemingly just dying to get hung or pinned or punctured. You’ve probably seen people diving in Mexican cenotes where there is beautiful clear water and silvery bubbles breaking against the stalactite covered ceiling. That kind of diving is already deadly dangerous. And most cave diving is far, far worse. I’ve been on cave dives from Missouri to Florida. There is always a passage that looks like you could fit — if you’ll just give in to the temptation to make a slight rearrangement of your gear. Like, say, taking off your tank. There’s always some surface covered in mud so fine that a single careless wave of a flipper stirs a wall of muck that fills the water for hours. There is always a deceptive current. Always a confusing play of light and shadow. It is always, always, easy to become confused, easy to become trapped. Far easier than caving in good old breathable air.
I’ve not just flown ultralight planes, I’ve crashed an experimental plane into a muddy Illinois beanfield. I’d do it again sooner than try to make the swim those divers are making in that Thai cave.
Very often cave diving means seeing nothing. Nothing. Not dimly. Nothing. Take off your scuba mask. Paint it black. Put it back on. Now try just swimming in a straight line. And then try doing it in a place where the nearest available air is a mile and a half behind you.
What is going on in that Thai cave is no one’s fault. Caves are wonders. People love to explore. Bad things happen.
Getting them out of there is extremely difficult. And hard, hard decisions are going to need to be made. Armchair quarterbacking this thing from half a world away, my temptation would be to strictly limit the number of people going in and out to those absolutely necessary to ferry supplies, keep pumping that water, and wait. That’s what my experience in dealing with both mine rescue and cave rescue would suggest. But … I’m not there. And I’m not going to judge the actions of the people on the ground any more than I want to judge the actions of the people who ended up trapped.
This isn’t a time for wagging fingers. Just for crossing them.