Perilous escape from cave leads to ideas for next time

Tour guide Peggy Nims hugs a friend, after she made it out of Hidden River Cave, where more than a dozen people who were exploring the cave were trapped by rising water Thursday in Horse Cave, Ky.
Tour guide Peggy Nims hugs a friend, after she made it out of Hidden River Cave, where more than a dozen people who were exploring the cave were trapped by rising water Thursday in Horse Cave, Ky.

HORSE CAVE, Ky. -- One day after 19 people trudged through neck-deep water in a harrowing escape from a flooded Kentucky cave, the operator of the spelunking attraction says he is analyzing the incident for any possible safety lessons.

David Foster, executive director of the American Cave Museum at Horse Cave, said he had no way to reach the group of students a mile deep in the caverns Thursday afternoon to warn them that the water was rising and threatening to block their only exit.

Radio frequencies don't reach that deep into the caverns; there are no phone lines to check in. So Foster sped home to get his boots, called 911 and ran into the flooded Hidden River Cave to find them. If he didn't act fast, he thought, the group of guides and college students who were there on a five-hour tour could end up trapped for days until the water receded.

They all made it out safely after navigating deep water and rushing currents.

"It was shooting waterfalls out of the ceiling. The walls were thundering, there was so much water moving through it," said Foster, who has been a guide for 30 years. "You just don't know what Mother Nature is capable of. There's only so much cave, and there's way more water."

Foster is now looking into installing a phone system in the cave, which gets about 15,000 visitors every year and is operated by the nonprofit American Cave Conservation Association. Its yearly budget is about $300,000. Revenue comes from donations, grants and ticket sales for the cave and museum.

Hidden River Cave begins at a sinkhole, 150-feet deep, in the center of downtown Horse Cave. It has two subterranean rivers that flow more than 100 feet below ground.

The group of 19 people exploring the cave -- mostly college students from Clemson University in South Carolina on a field trip to explore the water system in the cave -- spent more than six hours inside. The group included four tour guides. Two police officers got trapped when they tried to rescue the group, Kentucky State Police Trooper B.J. Eaton said.

Gary Russell was leading one group of four and another guide led a separate group of about a dozen. Until Russell noticed the water, they were unaware of the rising waters threatening to block the cave's entrance, which is the lowest point and the first area to flood.

There was no communication between the stranded cavers and the more than 150 emergency personnel at the scene. Authorities didn't know exactly where the missing cavers were underground, and the only light the group had was from headlamps they wore.

As Russell tried to lead his group out, the mist grew so thick it kept fogging up one student's glasses. He could barely see and kept stumbling.

"Just imagine going hiking in the mountains at night during a rainstorm and a mudslide," Russell said. "That's what this feels like. The water was so loud, it was like a jetliner; it was roaring."

Russell and his group were surprised to find the rescuers at the cave's mouth. But the other guide's group was still unaccounted for.

Foster and Police Chief Sean Henry began working their way deeper into the cave. The water was waist high in places and rising. There's only one way out, and they knew they'd have to come back out the way they came in. At one point, Henry said he saw the water closing in behind him and wondered if he'd ever leave.

They could hear nothing over the roar of the water. Foster started to doubt he'd come down the right passage. He said anxiety built like a rock in his stomach. Then they heard it: "We're here. We're OK!" The students had shouted after seeing their flashlights.

The way out was precarious. They had to wade and swim through high water, Foster said. But they all made it through. They emerged about 4:30 p.m. Everyone was accounted for and uninjured.

"When they came out of the cave, they were neck-deep in water," Hart County Emergency Management Director Kerry McDaniel said.

Information for this article was contributed by Beth Campbell of The Associated Press.

A Section on 05/28/2016

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